


Foxtail

by tkayo



Series: Mirrors of Loathing [2]
Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson, Wax and Wayne Series - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: ACAB, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Misra (Mistborn)/Ranette (Mistborn), Case Fic, Developing Relationship, Endgame Marasi Colms/MeLaan, F/F, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Bands of Mourning, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26713012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkayo/pseuds/tkayo
Summary: fox·tail | ˈfäks-ˌtāl | noun1. (metallurgy) The last cinders remaining at the end of the process of fining a metal.2. A colloquial name for a number of different grasses that resemble the bushy tail of a fox in appearance.Most species referred to as such are harmless.(Or, a post-Bands of Mourning fic and the sequel to Calamine)
Relationships: Marasi Colms/MeLaan, Marasi Colms/Original Female Character
Series: Mirrors of Loathing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809268
Comments: 34
Kudos: 22





	1. Unremarkable, Unintentional, Clumsy

**Author's Note:**

> you should probably read Calamine before this or a lot of character dynamics probably aren't going to make much sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just **unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy**.
> 
> \- Griffin McElroy, _The Adventure Zone: Balance_

“Captain!”

Marasi Colms paused, halfway between the entrance to the bullpen and her desk, and looked over her shoulder. Darna, the Constable-General’s secretary, was the one who’d called out to her, one eyebrow raised above her thick tortoiseshell spectacles. 

“He wanted to see you as soon as you were back,” Darna called across the room, raising her voice over the din.

Marasi nodded in acknowledgement and continued on to her desk. She placed the small carrybag that had contained her lunch on top, having just returned from her break, and grabbed the pertinent notes, a pad and a pencil before making her way over to the Constable-General’s office, weaving through the various desks in the pen on her way. 

Darna continued to gesture as she approached, making faces towards the slightly-ajar office door behind her. “He’s been getting pretty antsy,” she said as soon as Marasi was close enough, at a volume low enough to not carry past the door. 

“Tea?” Marasi asked at the same volume.

Darna wordlessly held up her thumb and first two fingers, and Marasi sighed. “Wonderful.”

“Good luck,” Darna told her sympathetically, and Marasi gave a tired little smile in acknowledgement. The other woman wasn’t technically a member of the constabulary the way Marasi was: like the rest of the typist and secretary roles, she was hired from a civilian pool of talent rather than working her way up through the ranks. Some other constables tended to talk about the civilian staff with resentment or disdain, but personally Marasi was fond of the older woman, and the two of them shared a certain degree of embittered solidarity. Darna being the Constable-General’s secretary, and Marasi having fallen into the unofficial position of his adjutant in the year since his promotion to the position, meant that they were both quite familiar with the man’s moods and quirks.

With a nod from Darna, Marasi straightened her posture, checked her uniform over and made a few small adjustments, then slipped inside the already-ajar door, stopping just beyond the threshold.

Once there, she rapped two knuckles against the inside of the doorframe. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

Constable-General Reddi glanced up from a desk full of paperwork. “Ah, Colms, good. Come in, close the door behind you.”

Marasi did as instructed, then took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk, observing her superior in the dim light filtering through the blinds of his office.

Reddi was a slightly older man, maybe late thirties, of average height and slim build. His hair was a dull red-brown, cropped closely to the skull and starting to grey at the temples, and his eyes were thin and deep-set. Back when Aradel had still been in charge of the Fourth, he’d looked relatively hearty, but these days there was a heavy, worn aspect to his face.

Marasi pointedly avoided thinking about whether she’d developed the same thing since her career change.

Reddi sighed, leaning back from the paperwork he’d been hunched over and rubbing at his eyes. “You can relax,” he said wearily. “I’m not going to upbraid you for anything.”

Marasi would’ve sagged with relief, if it had been professional to be as tense as she felt in the first place. “What did you need then, sir?”

"How long has it been now?" Reddi asked, instead of giving an answer. Or maybe that was an answer in and of itself, considering Marasi didn’t need to ask for clarification on what he was talking about.

"Four days," Marasi said, instead of the comment about not being his secretary that she wanted to make.

"And how much longer?" 

"Seventeen days."

Wearily, Reddi made the sign of the spear. "I swear, this is taking years off my lifespan, just _waiting_ for something to happen."

“Mm.”

He glanced up at her. “Awfully calm, for the person standing at the bottom of the landslide.”

“I disagree with the presupposition of a landslide, sir,” Marasi replied calmly.

Reddi sighed. “Then you’re a much bigger optimist than I am, Colms.”

Waxillium Ladrian and Steris Ladrian (nee Harms) had been married in a small, private ceremony the night of their return to Elendel via airship. For the most part, it was the formal and legal affirmation of a pre-existing relationship; very little actually changed about their day-to-day lives except for Steris officially moving into Ladrian Manor, and Marasi being forced to have an _extremely_ uncomfortable conversation with her sister about an appropriate level of information-sharing with regards to their… marital activities. Having just arrived back in the city after events of historic proportions, they had mutually and painlessly agreed that they’d take a week or two to get the affairs of their house in order and let things calm down before taking a honeymoon.

They’d finally managed to leave for their trip four days ago, nearly a full six months after the ceremony. During those first weeks of planned delay, a rash of extravagant metal robberies had sprung up, which had set the tone: from there, it had been a non-stop cavalcade of one thing after another - if it wasn’t a pressing case, there was some issue with House finances or an important session of Parliament. 

Marasi, having front-row seats to the continual pushback for obvious reasons, had initially worried that it might cause some friction between them (a theory that she was _absolutely_ not basing on romance novels she’d read, no matter what Wayne accused otherwise), but her worries had been unfounded. It didn’t exactly need saying that Wax and Steris were both eminently practical people, and the newlywed glow stayed strong around the two of them whenever she saw them.

Marasi had found herself busier with work after realising that, and therefore unable to spend much time with them.

The pertinence of the Ladrian honeymoon to Marasi’s work, well…

_It was well past midnight when the three of them returned to Ladrian Manor, bone-weary and still dripping from the unexpected storm that had blown through earlier. After a harrowing week, the Coppercloud Cutter was safely in police custody, and like the end of most serious cases, there was a sense of sudden pressure being released. Marasi knew she would probably sleep most of the next day, but with the storm still raging outside, spending the night in one of the manor’s spare rooms was rather more appealing than trying to make her way back to her own flat._

_Wayne had wandered off the instant they’d crossed the threshold, and so Wax and Marasi both retired to a small sitting room - the very same, in fact, where VenDell had briefed them on the Bands, what seemed like a lifetime ago._

_“Drink?” Wax asked her, pulling a small bottle of amber liquid out of the cabinet and offering it up for her approval._

_Marasi barely even bothered to inspect it before nodding her approval. “Gods,” she groaned, collapsing into an armchair. “Next time, Wayne can be backup. Not all of us can just heal away four hours crammed into a tiny crate, you know.”_

_Wax laughed as he joined her, ice clinking against the glasses he held. He handed one over before taking a seat in the adjacent chair, letting out a quiet sigh of relief. “You explain to me how Wayne would’ve fit in there, and we’ll go with your plan next time.”_

_“Cut off a limb or two,” Marasi suggested sourly._

_Wax raised an eyebrow, the slight twitching of his mustache giving away his efforts to keep a straight face._

_“What? They’d grow back.” She took a sip of her drink, then immediately blinked in surprise and took a second, longer one._

_“Good, isn’t it?” Wax asked. “Honey and spices, they tell me.”_

_It_ was _good. Marasi wasn’t usually fond of spirits, but it had a pleasant sweetness to it that offset most of the harsh edges of the rum._

_“Can’t go wrong with sweets,” she acknowledged, before taking another sip and realising she’d almost finished the glass. “Okay,” she amended, realising just how easy it would be to get absolutely apocalyptically drunk on the honeyed concoction, “maybe you can.”_

_“Beats getting plastered on rotgut some idiot brewed in the cellar underneath his house,” Wax countered._

_Marasi made a face. “Oh, I don’t like that I know you’re speaking from experience. Please don’t tell me that’s part of the honeymoon agenda.” Part of their upcoming trip was going to be to the Roughs; out of an apparently-mutual desire for Steris to see where Wax had spent his formative years._

_“Not unless Steris wants to.” They both paused, silently acknowledging the very real possibility of that happening. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”_

_“About Steris?”_

_“The trip.”_

_“If you want me to convince Steris to let you bring more guns,” Marasi said dryly, “don’t bother.”_

_He let out a spluttered snort at that. “Harmony, no. Not that. Steris is_ perfectly _content to let me bring as many guns as I think necessary.”_

_Marasi would’ve laughed, if not for the fond smile that crossed his face at the words._

So ridiculously sappy.

_“No, I wanted to ask you a favour,” he continued, growing more serious. “I know I’m not some… lynchpin holding the city together. But it’d be a weight off my mind if there was someone keeping an eye on things all the same.”_

_Marasi took a second to process his words and the implications behind them, brain slightly slow from the exhaustion and alcohol. “...what are you saying?”_

_“I’m saying… if something big happens, obviously I’ll come back. The Set, something like L- like Bleeder, anything like that. But otherwise… I’d feel better if you were keeping an eye on things in the interim.”_

_“You’d… trust me with that?”_

_He actually stared at her, a little surprised, before chuckling ruefully. “Sorry, I’m still not used to… saying things like this. But I’ve trusted you to have my back for a while now, Marasi. In my head, I guess I just assumed you’d know what that meant.”_

_“...which is?” Marasi asked after a second._

_“Give me a second,” he joked. “I’m still not good at this.” The words ‘but I’m trying’ hovered unspoken in the space between them. “I do trust you, Marasi. Quite literally with my life.”_

_And she_ had _known, in a way. They’d been in enough gunfights that trust was pretty much a prerequisite. Hearing it out loud, though, still sent an unexpected thrill up her spine._

_Wax mistook her silence for hesitation. “...was that too far?”_

_“No,” she said quickly, “I’m not… I’m not sure that_ I _trust me with that, is all.”_

 _“I won’t respect you less if you say no,” Wax offered. “But for what it’s worth… you’re a damn good detective. Far better than I was at your age.”_ _  
_ _Where once she would’ve flushed, she now allowed herself to preen, just a little. It came in little snatches, infrequent and growing even more so as time passed, but every now and then Marasi remembered why she’d convinced herself she loved him._

_“...okay.”_

_“Okay?” Wax asked_

_“Okay,” Marasi confirmed. “I’ll do it.”_

_And that was that._

A month later, and if it was going to come back to bite her in the ass, it hasn’t done so yet. Well, a month and four days, and it was the latter part that actually mattered. Still, it wasn’t something she was _worried_ about, not in the same way as Reddi. Something she was keeping an eye on, certainly, but it felt a bit distant; an abstract consideration rather than something looming, pressing. 

“Well then,” Reddi said, with the world-weary knowing of someone who is convinced they’re right but has magnanimously decided to concede the point anyway. “The floor is yours, captain.”

Under normal circumstances, a captain was the highest authority in a precinct, concerned more with the high-level operations than the day-to-day management. Despite the presence of the Octant’s Constable-General at the main precinct, the captain there operated in a similar role, handling the precinct’s duties _as_ a precinct, while the Constable-General and their staff dealt with the management of law enforcement in the Octant as a whole. 

Technically speaking, this was the rank Marasi held, but in truth she was something of a unique case. Her connection to Lord Waxillium made her the obvious choice to liaison between him and more official forms of law enforcement, and when not occupied with that, her day-to-day mostly consisted of operating as something of an assistant to the Constable-General. Her captaincy was more of an honour rank than anything else - it gave her the authority to command most other officers of the constabulary should it become necessary in a so-called ‘Dawnshot Case’, but she held no command, and it had been made clear to her that if she tried to exercise said rank under normal circumstances, she held none of its protections either. 

Which was perfectly fine by Marasi; she had little interest in ordering other people around anyway.

Even while unofficially filling the Lord Ladrian’s Special Constable status, she was still subordinate to Reddi, and he had decided that the best use of her for the time being was keeping watch for any sort of developing situations that might turn into something requiring Wax’s unique brand of justice.

Personally, she thought it was busywork, but never let it be said that Marasi Colms didn’t give her work its due diligence.

“Once again,” Marasi began, assembling her notes, “nothing of note to report, sir. The Seventh Octant is reporting a large uptick in lost pets, but unless animal negligence has suddenly become a much more severe crime, I doubt we have anything to worry about on that front."

"Hardly," Reddi snorted.

“Six ice factories have reported robberies of ice shipments,” Marasi continued, “but that’s hardly a surprise with Proposition 18. The respective task forces can deal with that. Three metal shop robberies in the last week, but no apparent connection: three different octants, one cleared out the whole store, one set off an alarm before making in, and one stole nothing but steel.”

“Ice thefts? Missing pets?” Reddi muttered. “That’s it?”

Marasi shrugged one shoulder, a gesture she’d unconsciously found herself using more and more. “Like I said, sir, I disagree with the presupposition of a landslide. Business as usual.”

Reddi pursed his lips, then sighed. “Let’s hope you’re right,” he said, glancing down at his paperwork again. "I swear, Colms, him leaving like this is practically _baiting_ the cosmere to drop something on us."

"And yet," Marasi countered, "he is just a single man, who has no more responsibility to the city's safety than anyone else. Honestly, after everything he's been through, he deserves this honeymoon thrice over."

He waved her off. “I know, I know. This city survived before Dawnshot, it’ll survive after him.” Marasi thought about how it very nearly _hadn’t_ , but decided to refrain from saying as much. “Moving on, then. I could use an extra set of eyes on this month’s report before I present it to the Governor. Can you stay back this evening, double-check a few figures?”

The request was a perfunctory one, made more out of instinctually defaulting to the form rather than a genuine question. Reddi fully expected her to stay and assist - after all, she always had in the past.

“Actually,” she said, trying not to let her reticence show, “I’m afraid I won’t.”

“Great,” Reddi replied, attention already returning to the paperwork in front of him. “Always nice to-” He paused, brain catching up with his ears. “You won’t?”

He didn’t sound _angry_ so much as _confused_ , but Marasi still had to suppress the urge to flinch. 

“Can’t, rather,” she said. “I have plans.”

He glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow. “Plans? You?”

“I’m trying something new,” she said dryly. 

“Well,” Reddi replied, “best of luck with that. Maybe I’ll give it a try, one of these days.”

“I’m sure Edmee would appreciate it, at least.” Edmee, Reddi’s wife of three years, was someone Marasi had come to know quite well purely through second-hand information, simply from how often her superior mentioned her. Not in a negative manner for the most part, nothing that made Marasi worried; just _very frequently._

“Survivor, she probably would. Never get married, Colms,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Once you’re in, you never get out again.”

The spike of bitter resentment that washed up at his words took Marasi by surprise, and she had to take a second to push it back down. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, as neutrally as possible. “Anything else, sir?”

He shook his head. “Enjoy your weekend, Colms. Let me know how the whole ‘social life’ thing goes.”

“Of course,” Marasi said dryly.

* * *

“Colms! Hey, Colms.”

Marasi glanced over her shoulder to see a tall, thin woman in a detective’s uniform approaching her.

“Josette,” Marasi greeted her. “Is it urgent? I was just leaving.”

“Oh, no,” the detective said, “nothing work related. Me ‘n the others were having another poker night; thought you might want in?”

‘The others’ in this case referred to a small group of ten-ish women from various departments of the precinct, a mix of constabulary officers and civilian staff who had conglomerated into something of a social bloc in response to the shared struggle of being women in a male-dominated profession.

“Thanks,” Marasi said, as sincerely as she could, “but I already have plans.”

“Oh, sure,” Josette responded easily. “How about next Thursday, then?”

“Afraid not, sorry.” Marasi actually _was_ free that evening, but, well… she didn’t particularly _want_ to spend time with the group or with Josette.

She was… not a friend, exactly. _Friendly_ , but not anything more. Marasi had made an effort to change that a little while back, when she’d returned to her day-to-day after the Bands of Mourning incident. As it turned out, though, beyond the aforementioned common struggle, they really didn’t have much in common - if nothing else, Josette had a husband, while Marasi was… private. 

“Oh, alright, then,” Josette replied, nonplussed. “Well, just let me know if you’re ever free. It’d be nice to have you along again.”

“I’ll do that,” Marasi agreed, with no intention of doing so. 

She would’ve ended the conversation there, but Josette took a step forward, clearly not done.

“Hey.” The tone of her voice had grown more serious. “I hope it’s not overstepping, but is everything okay? You seem a bit down. Reddi’s not breathing down your neck, is he?”

“Not Reddi, no,” Marasi responded, trying not to be curt. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Josette responded, clearly not believing her. “Well… enjoy your weekend, then.”

“You too.”

Like she’d said, the other woman wasn’t a friend. Maybe if she was, Marasi might’ve shared what was on her mind, what was weighing down her thoughts.

That it was exactly six months and four days since she'd held the Bands of Mourning and tasted the power of the Lord Ruler

Six months and one day since they'd returned to Elendel on the captured Hunter airship.

And six months to the day since she'd last seen MeLaan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and welcome back- no where are you going i promise its not what it looks like!!
> 
> notes:  
> \- bear with me here!  
> \- Bear with me okay!!!!  
> \- I know I'm starting a shipfic with one character mysteriously absent in a happy ending override but bear with me!!!!!  
> \- i dont know if reddi actually gets a physical description and i cant be bothered to check so he looks like this now. im god i can do that  
> \- by the time of BoM Marasi is a captain, but what that actually means I have no idea. She certainly doesn’t seem to be in command of a precinct a la american police bc that’s the constable-general of each octant, and the rank doesn’t exist in the U.K. law enforcement, so…? ive chosen to interpret this as an honour rank, with her function being essentially an aide de camp to the Constable-General but with a lot more leeway - enough to be sent away for a few weeks following up a lead in Bands of Mourning, at least. A similar role to the one Wax has, in essence, but with a lot more paperwork and at least the pretence of a dayjob.  
> \- i have had to learn far more about policing than i ever wanted to for this fic  
> \- as in, literally anything about policing  
> \- i know a TAZ quote is a bit tonally off compared to other chapter quotes but it was too perfect to resist  
> \- the drink in the flashback inspired by my friend's 'old man whiskey', the only spirit ive ever smelled that didnt just smell exactly like draino


	2. Had Moses Seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **Had Moses seen** how my friend’s face blushes when he is drunk, and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands, he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man.
> 
> \- Attributed to an unnamed poet in Baghdad by Yehuda al-Ḥarizi in his work תחכמוני. Translated into English by Jeffrey Gorsky 

If the pub she was currently sitting in had a name, Marasi hadn’t been able to find it. 

Misra hadn’t provided one - they’d met up at her and Ranette’s place, before taking a train over. Marasi had only been provided with a vague dress code, which she’d tried to match with a dark, flowing blue dress. The boots she wore beneath it, admittedly, were more a concession to practicality - she’d become very familiar in the last year and a half with situations requiring her to run or kick things sneaking up on her without warning. She’d even worn a little bit of makeup for the first time in a few months, and kept reaching up to rub at her eyes before she remembered.

In the past few months, Marasi had been spending more time with the irascible gunsmith and her partner. The word ‘friends’ still seemed a bit odd for women who were older than her by a decade - but then again, she considered Wax a friend, and he had even more years on her. But as the only people Marasi knew who were- like her, it was inevitable that she’d ended up seeking them out, for advice or just a point of commonality, to be _understood_. Ranette was better at the latter; Misra, the former.

She’d been trying to get Marasi to come out with her for a few months ago - never pestering, just persistent - and she’d finally agreed, thinking that it might be a good distraction from- 

Well, just a good distraction in general. 

The bar itself was a dark and dim place, the low lighting seemingly an intentional choice both for the ambience and for the measure of privacy it lent. There was an oddly nautical bent to the decor, which puzzled Marasi slightly. They _were_ in the Seventh Octant, closer than most of the city to the docks but not actually _close_ in an objective sense. Seeing as it was a Friday night, it was humming along nicely, the sounds of conversation and the clinking of glasses filling the space, busy enough that if a few members of the group hadn’t arrived earlier to secure a booth, they might not have found one at all.

Marasi had met a few of Misra's friends individually before, but never all together. They were an eclectic group, covering a wide range of age, build, fashion sense and basically every other identifying feature. Pari, the tall and broad-shouldered Basiner woman with the husky voice, was a frequent presence at Ranette and Misra’s house, often painting with Misra in her studio space around the back of the building.

(Pari had gently flirted with her the first few times they’d met, before Marasi had politely but gently let her down. It had been a bit too soon, for one - and, secretly, information about the other woman had been collecting in the back of Marasi’s mind, slowly building towards a conclusion. And, given her past experiences, she felt like the conclusion would probably be… _uncharitable,_ or outright rude, so it was simply easier to avoid thinking about it in the first place). 

Osk and his partner Jeshin were familiar faces as well, even if they’d only actually spoken a few times. Others, though, were unfamiliar to her, and their names kept slipping free of her memory. The willowy Terriswoman whose name maybe started with an L looked quite similar to Misra, enough that Marasi had actually asked about it. This had earned her a gentle glare, an explanation of why it was rude to assume that based purely on experience, and then almost as an afterthought the information that their grandmothers were sisters. 

The others, two women and a man, were complete strangers to her, and she hadn’t had enough time to catalogue and differentiate them yet. 

The conversation flowed easily, congenially - the rest of the group were obviously familiar with each other, but Misra made an effort to include Marasi in the kind of subtle, effortless social manoeuvring that Marasi would have killed to have when she was younger.

To her eye, it seemed fairly obvious that Misra was the connective tissue holding the group together; she was that sort of person, it seemed. After all, she was the reason Marasi was there, and there were small lines of division amongst the group upon observation, a sign that they would naturally form a few smaller groups without Misra there to tie them all together effortlessly.

She’d often reference a multitude of different people - so-and-so from this protest organisation, or this artist’s collaborative, or this homeless shelter. Over the past few months, Marasi had come to understand her as a woman with fingers in a thousand different pies, and a genuine investment in all of them. She wasn’t insincere or flighty, just a… connection maker. A social butterfly.

Ranette, of course, was almost the exact _opposite_ of that. In all honesty, the more Marasi learned about Misra, the stranger and more inexplicable her relationship with the dour and taciturn gunsmith became. She’d heard about opposites attracting, of course, but this seemed a little extreme. 

(Then again, it had apparently lasted them a good ten years - even if not all of those years were consecutive).

Currently, the topic of conversation had gotten away from Marasi, full of references to people and places she didn’t recognise, and she’d allow herself to drift slightly, staring down into the nearly-empty glass of her single drink of the night. 

A word in the flow of chatter caught her attention, though, and she looked up. “What was that?”

“Hm?” Misra’s cousin (Lyndwywn, maybe?) glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard? Constables kicked down the door over at Rye’s, rounded ‘em all up.”

Marasi blinked, appalled. “But- _why?_ ” She didn’t know what or where ‘Rye’s’ was, exactly, but she could infer from context.

“Oh, _officially,_ I’m sure it was something about public decency codes,” she said, getting a chorus of muttered agreements from the other. “We all know the _real_ reason, of course, but they’re not gonna pass _that_ through Parliament at least.”

Pari laughed. “Motion To Exclude The,” and then she said a word that Marasi didn’t recognise, “From Public Life, passed on all counts.”

“Ugh,” Misra groaned, dropping her head dramatically onto the tabletop. “Let’s not reason for Ruin, people, or he’ll start getting ideas.”

“Too right,” the Terriswoman agreed, taking a swig of her drink. 

“Marasi,” one of the undefined women asked, “you work with the constabulary, right?”

Something about the tone of the question felt a bit off to Marasi, but she replied anyway. “Er, yes. For about a year now.”

“Oh, huh,” the other unidentified woman said. “You’re _that_ Marasi Colms? You work with Dawnshot?”

“Yes,” Marasi confirmed, surprised. “I… assumed Misra had already mentioned as much, to be honest.”

The woman in question gave a guileless shrug. “I thought it’d make you uncomfortable.”

“Hm,” Misra’s cousin said, lips pursed. “Guess you can’t be _all_ bad, then.”

Marasi would never claim to be the most socially adroit, but even _she_ could pick up on the subtext in that statement. “ _Excuse_ me?”

The other woman’s brow furrowed, mouth opening, but before she could get any words out, Misra clapped her hands together twice and slapped them onto the surface of the table, palms down. Conversation immediately ceased, every eye around the table, and some beyond it, turning to her.

“Can we not do this, please?” she asked, a little wearily. “Can _you_ not do this, Lindweal?” _Lindweal, that was it._

“Misra-” Lindweal glanced around, and obviously saw something in the faces of the others that convinced her to back down. “...fine. Sorry.”

“...it’s okay,” Marasi said, not entirely sure what exactly she was even apologising _for._

The conversation picked up again after that, but Marasi found herself drifting even more, thrown off by Lindweal’s strange, aborted accusation and the mention of the constabulary _raiding_ bars. She knew it happened sometimes, but not having come up through the ranks in the traditional sense meant she’d never been involved in that sort of mundane law-enforcement. Surely it was something that only happened on suspect of illegal Soothing parlours, or safety violations? The idea that it would happen just because of the clientele… surely not. 

Surely.

The room felt overly warm all of a sudden, uncomfortable and claustrophobic.

“Just going to use the facilities,” Marasi announced quietly before slipping out of her seat. A few of the others nodded in acknowledgement, but the flow of chatter moved on easily. 

She was halfway across the room when footsteps sounded behind her, and a hand touched her gently on the arm.

“Hey,” Misra said quietly as Marasi turned around. “Everything okay?” She was dressed in a sort of loose wrap outfit, sheets of orange and gold and red draping off her limbs but showing enough skin in the right places to accentuate her figure.

“Just need a bit of air,” Marasi said. “It’s okay.”

“Right,” Misra said, relieved. “I’m sorry about Lin.”

“...can I ask what that was about? I’m not even sure _what_ you’re sorry for, to be honest.”

Misra sighed, tugging on the metal ring at the end of one of her braids. “It’s… complicated. Not everyone has… great experiences with the constabulary, Marasi.”

“Well, sure,” Marasi agreed, “but she was acting like… I don’t know. I’d somehow offended her personally.”

Misra glanced off to the side. “Like I said, it’s complicated. Not the best environment for it, here.” She tapped Marasi lightly on the elbow twice. “You go get your air now.”

With that, she vanished back towards the table, leaving Marasi even more uncertain than she’d been before.

Buried in her thoughts, she made her way across to the bar, navigating through tables and past booths. With directions from the bartender, she moved down a narrow corridor past the bar, pressing up against the wall at one point to make space for an employee coming the other way. The door at the end opened up into the alleyway behind the bar, and she stepped outside, letting it close behind her and muffle the noise from inside.

She sighed, staring up at skyline rising above her, the cool brickwork of the wall rough against her arm. It was a clear night, with barely a hint of mist. The stars were dimmer here in the city than out in the Roughs - she’d heard theories about artificial light making it harder to pick out their faint glow in the tapestry. Marasi wasn’t quite sure if she believed that - surely stars were far too formidable to be overpowered by some gas lamps - but it was hardly her area of expertise.

The smell in the alleyway was less than pleasant, but a crisp breeze was funnelled through the maze of buildings, blowing the worst of the garbage-and-alcohol smell away from her. It brushed across her skin, picking out all the little beads of sweat and moisture as tiny pinpricks of sharper cold. It would probably get uncomfortable after a while, but it was just right for the few minutes of quiet and solitude she was looking for.

There was probably something pithy and self-deprecating she could say about her own tendency to screw social situations up, but she honestly didn’t have the energy for it. Misra’s friends seemed… well, _nice_ probably wasn’t the right word, a few too many sharp edges for that. They seemed like good people. _Misra_ was good people, far kinder than most would’ve been to a young woman they barely knew awkwardly attempting to slot herself into their lives based on a tenuous commonality. 

Though, maybe not so tenuous after all, she was starting to think. Sitting at that table, with people who really had nothing in common with her at all, except that they _did_ because they were all… other. Things they weren’t supposed to be. 

Maybe if she’d been a better headspace, she’d have been able to appreciate that more. 

She was just starting to feel like she could head back in when the creaking of the door behind her startled her out of her reverie.

“Oh, sorry,” a voice said as she turned. “Nearly hit you there.”

Indeed, the arc of the door had stopped just short of whacking Marasi on the arm. She stepped back to allow it to fully open, and a woman stepped through with a grateful nod, closing it behind her. “Didn’t think there’d be anyone out here.”

She glanced over at Marasi, a quick up-down that didn’t attempt to disguise its intent. Feeling slightly guilty, Marasi did the same.

She was short, slightly stocky in build, and dressed in traditionally masculine clothing - brown trousers, a white dress shirt with the top button undone and sleeves rolled to the elbow, and a pair of suspenders that framed her… chest. The shirt had some odd-coloured stains in a few places, and was slightly pinched at the armpits due to apparently designed for someone with a different build, but overall it was a coherent combination, and the woman wore it with confidence. 

She had a round, open face, unusually pale-skinned and thickly-freckled across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, giving her a slightly youthful aspect for all that she looked to be about Marasi's age. The spectacles she wore were thick enough that they made her eyes look unusually large proportionally - they were a light brown, with something of a calm watchfulness to them. She wore no makeup, and her hair was a vivid coppery-orange colour, cropped short above her ears with a few curls falling across her forehead in a manner that Marasi could only describe as ‘rakish’. 

“It’s alright,” Marasi said, after a pause that probably felt a lot longer in her head. “I was just about to head back in, if you-”

“Oh, nah,” the woman waved her down. “Don’t worry yourself on my account. I was just-” She pulled out a small paper packet. “Do you mind?” she asked.

Marasi bit down on the instinctual ‘go ahead’ that leapt to her tongue. “Actually, I do, sorry,” she said.

That got a soft laugh, and the cigarettes disappeared back into her pockets. “Can’t argue with that. You should consider it, though.” She gave Marasi another, longer once-over - not lecherous, just considerate. It made her shiver pleasantly anyway. “That getup, a nice little classy cigarette holder, stare wistfully off into the distance… you’ll be beating the dames off with a stick.”

“I’ll… take that into consideration.” Marasi said with a small smile.

“You probably don’t need the help, to be fair.” The woman’s teeth were a little crooked when she grinned, one of the front top ones prominently chipped. “Bloody hell, though,” she added, rubbing her hands together. “You’re not cold out here, with all that on display?”

“All what?” Marasi laughed, a little incredulous. Her dress was cut above the elbow, sure, and had a slit up one leg, but it was hardly _displaying_ anything. “You’re not exactly in winter formals either.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d have a cigarette to warm me up,” she replied, free of any venom. 

“Sorry,” Marasi said, just to be polite.

“Nah, you’re fine. Stand up for yourself, all that.” She moved slightly, leaning against the brickwork on the other side of the doorway. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing out here, then? Have to assume it’s not the smell.”

“You never know,” Marasi replied, “maybe I’m fond of it.”

She crinkled her nose. “Oh, I hope not. You seemed so classy.”

“Sorry to disappoint. 

The woman grinned. "I’ll take that dodge as an ‘I don’t wanna talk about’, then?”

“Oh, that makes it sound so dramatic. I just needed a few minutes of quiet. Not,” she hastily added, “that I was trying to get you to leave.”

“Glad to hear it. You’re, uh, new around here, then? I won’t claim to recognise everyone who comes by, but I like to think I’d notice someone who looks like you.”

“Do you ever turn it off?” Marasi asked, more amused than insulted. 

“I can stop, if you like.”

Marasi surprised herself with her response. “I didn’t say _that_. And,” she moved on quickly before she could say something else impulsive, “I’m new, yes. To all of this, really.”

“Ahh,” the woman said knowingly. “I’m sorry, then. I know it can be a bit overwhelming.”

“Kind of you to say.”

“Can be a bit less, though,” she continued. “You know, if you wanted someone to… walk you through things.”

Marasi laughed again, but it faded into a sigh quite quickly. “I’m sorry,” she said, instead of responding directly. “I’m… not really in a good place for… any of this, and I shouldn’t have led you on like that.”

“Nothing to apologise for, I think,” came the easy reply. “Nothing wrong with a bit of flirting for the self-esteem. Let me guess, though; bad break-up?”

“No-” Marasi stopped, and thought about. “Okay, yes. Or not _bad,_ but- unresolved?”

That got a knowing nod. “Can I ask how long?”

Marasi shook her head ruefully. “You’re going to laugh at me.”

“Spear my heart,” she said, making a sloppy version of the matching gesture. “No laughter whatsoever.”

If she’d looked pitying, or even sympathetic, Marasi would’ve stopped talking right there, found some reason to leave. She just looked… interested, though. Not in a malicious or mocking way, but just like she was genuinely curious but not emotionally invested. Somehow, that was the perfect level of engagement for Marasi to not care about spilling her guts.

“A few days,” Marasi said, staring up at the city skyline rising above them, silhouetted in mist and moonlight. “Pathetic, right? She was the first woman I’d ever been interested in, in my entire life. I mean, it was early days, but it felt like there was... something there.”

The woman nodded. “Know what you mean, yeah. The uh, certain something.” _The life-and-death adrenaline might’ve helped things along._ Marasi didn’t think there was any good way to mention that, though. “So what happened?”

“Nothing,” Marasi said, a little bitter. “That’s what keeps getting me about. Nothing happened, she just- wasn’t there the next morning.”

“Ouch.” She winced sympathetically. “Use you for sex then move on, huh. Been there.”

“Wh- _no_ ,” Marasi spluttered. “W- that- _no._ It wasn’t like that!”

“Okay, okay,” the woman laughed, “I get it. She wasn’t burning as hot as you for it, then?”

“That’s the worst part; I have _no idea_.” Marasi laughed bitterly. “You can laugh at me now, if you like. Survivor knows I would.”

“You can feel however you like about it,” she said simply. “I certainly ain’t gonna judge; I don’t know you from jack.”

“Not a commonly-held viewpoint,” Marasi noted dryly.

“Well, hey,” the woman responded, tucking her thumbs behind the bands of her suspenders and adopting a confident, relaxed slouch, “guess I must just be exceptional, then.”

Marasi couldn’t help but laugh, even while feeling the blush burning across the bridge of her nose. She was well aware that she was being flirted with, and it still made her uncomfortable even as she found herself enjoying it to a degree. She was self-aware enough to admit that she liked the attention, liked getting it from someone whose attention didn’t make her skin crawl, but she still felt… guilty, for enjoying it.

Dirty, even.

“If it makes you feel any better,” the stranger continued, naturally unaware of Marasi’s internal turmoil, “I had an ex who I moved in with after a month, then broke up with two weeks later.”

An unexpected snort ripped free of Marasi before she could stop it. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “That was unkind of me, it’s just-”

“Nah,” the woman said with a grin, “that’s about the right reaction. I was… _whoo. Head_ over heels for her. If you’d seen her legs…” she shook her head, clicking her tongue in fond remembrance. “Course, turned out she felt… less intensely. Er, where was I going with this?”

“You’re asking me?” Marasi asked, smirking despite herself.

“Oh, right. We’ve all done some dumb shit, is the point. Anyone who hasn’t ain’t worth knowing, in my opinion.”

“You... may be onto something there.” Marasi sighed. “I’m sorry. You came out here to smoke, not to listen to a stranger’s damage.”

“Hey, I’m pretty flexible.” She winked, and Marasi rolled her eyes amusedly. “I asked, anyway. Sometimes it’s easier with someone you don’t know. No baggage. And hey,” she added, leaning forward slightly, “nothing says we have to _stay_ strangers.” 

Her voice had dropped down on the last few parts, and Marasi found herself responding to it in an unexpectedly physical way-

-only to have it immediately drowned out by self-recrimination, memory, and guilt.

She sighed, pulling back from where she’d unconsciously started to lean towards the other woman. “There’s probably a few reasons why that’s not a good idea, sorry.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t even know your name, for one.”

“That’s pretty easy to change.”

Marasi sighed. “...I’m not particularly sure I want it to.”

She winced theatrically. “Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

The woman waved it off with an easy grin. “Hey, you’re upfront about it, I respect that. Can’t blame a girl for trying, right?”

“ _Won’t_ ,” Marasi said lightly, “not _can’t_.” She straightened up off the wall, fixing her dress where it had ridden up slightly. “But… thank you. For listening to stranger’s whining. I’ll get out of your hair so you can have that cigarette, then.”

“I’d dispute it being whining, but I also _really_ want a cigarette.”

Marasi chuckled, opening the door. 

“And hey,” the woman added, “if you ever change your mind, I’m usually around.”

“I’ll… keep that in mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's recommendation: if you like cosmere stuff and want some galaxy brain stormlight f/f, please read this fic:  
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTMFZk6uxQ3LP6TWUNnPm4VoOEv4B0BRzCIA8lDCjP6tIwD5zTkBmnJECqIh0_m_8-rHZcYn7L4ay0W/pub
> 
> \----
> 
> i feel like i should make a statement of intent here: im not going for *accuracy* with any of this stuff. for one, its not real history, and two, we dont even have a specific decade to compare it to, with scadrial's development being uneven. there's no real way to create an 'accurate' depiction of even an equivalent of irl queer culture, things just dont match up. im making something of an effort to avoid extremely modern terminology but at the same time this is a story being written from a modern perspective and some of that's going to inevitably bleed in. i dont know what my actual point is here
> 
> notes:  
> \- i originally used a version of 'closeted' in this chapter, but had to go back and edit it due to the irl terminology not being recorded before the 60s. 'coming out' has a longer history, being initially more analogous to a debutante ball or being presented to high society, but as that seemed to primarily be about gay men i decided not to use that either  
> \- the term 'lesbian' is also slightly too recent (i'm aiming ambiguously for early-mid 1800s western society as my benchmark), but sapphic as a noun (as in 'a sapphic') has precedence as far back as the 1700s, so its fair game. as with things like 'hell', we're following the pretext of a cultural translation - whatever term being used in the native language here would have its roots in historical poetry, likely pre-Final Empire, but isn't literally 'sapphic', just an equivalent.  
> \- 'flirt' has french origins so given the french influences of central dominance language im giving it a free pass and maybe also used it already i forget  
> \- im doing so much fucking Research for fanfiction woe is me  
> \- these motherfuckers dont know tobacco's bad for you yet, to be clear. obligatory dont fucking smoke its bad for you  
> \- you can probably guess what word Pari said, but i didn't feel comfortable actually putting it in here for a variety of reasons  
> \- the slight nautical theming is a nod to A-House, the so called 'oldest gay bar in america'  
> \- with regards to the ACAB stuff: im trying to thread a fairly narrow needle here. i dont want marasi to be completely unsympathetic, and her being part of the constabulary is kind of pre-existing baggage that comes from the series, but i also dont want to ignore it entirely. im... probably going to fuck it up at some point, but i think it being a fictional world and early industrialisation gives me a little leeway? to be clear though: ACAB, and we're definitely not going in a 'more women guards at the prison camps' direction


	3. Little Jokes On Thee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Forgive, O Lord, my **little jokes on Thee**  
>  And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
> 
> \- Robert Frost, _Cluster of Faith_

The door to the church swung open silently, the hinges well-oiled and smooth. Marasi slipped inside, thankful as she closed it gently behind her that the caretakers had evidently done their jobs well. 

The interior of the main hall was a familiar, standard layout. The door Marasi had entered through was the small one built into a recessed section of one of the side walls - the large double doors at the back of the hall were closed and barred due to the timing. The rows of wooden pews were empty, as was the pulpit placed at the head of the room, directly below the statue of the Survivor’s Spear. A few tapestries hung on either side, stylised depictions of the Survivor’s Ascension and the Lord Mistborn bursting through the flames of Urteau. Through the glass built into the back wall behind the spear, the morning sun cast long shadows off of the decorations - likely an intentional architectural decision. 

Marasi paused for a second just over the threshold, taking in the holy space’s ambience. There was a faint ache sitting just behind her temples, weighing down her brows, and it was a relief to move into the quiet, dim atmosphere of the church from the hustle and bustle of the city streets. She’d only allowed herself a single drink the previous night, as she always did, but the adherence to moderation meant that her tolerance was commensurately low in proportion with her consumption. It had occurred to her more than once, usually in particularly bitter moods, that at the very least she should’ve inherited better tolerance as a consolation prize. 

Such thoughts were hardly appropriate for a place of worship, though, and so she pushed them from her mind and moved forward out of the recessed section of the hall that the door was tucked away inside. She was near the back of the rows of pews, and she began moving towards the front, staying on the outside of the central area demarcated by the supporting pillars. 

She hadn’t attended a weekly service in years, but when she had, it had been at a much larger church than this one, significantly well annointed. She’d gone to a nearby church a few times after her departure from the Harms estate, but when she thought of weekly services, it was the ones of her childhood that automatically came to mind. The cold, smooth varnish of the wooden pews against her legs, the sun splitting through the stained glass above the pulpit, the leather-and-metal smell of her father’s cologne, applied heavily in an attempt to cover up the sharp bite of alcohol lurking beneath it. 

Whether it had been successful or not, Marasi would never know - she was too familiar with both smells to miss it, but too young to understand the implications, or to look for signs that others had noticed. 

The other smells, thankfully, evoked far less volatile emotions; the slight chemical bite of the wood varnish on the pews, the faint, lingering tra\ces of unscented tallow and woodsmoke from the candles. Even the faintest brush of sacramental wine underneath the other scents failed to elicit a negative reaction, being more evocative of church to her mind than the actual consumption of alcohol. 

_No matter where you go,_ she mused, _some things stay the same._ It was comforting, in a way, to know that if you walked into a completely random Survivorist church, you’d find the same familiar elements.

Of course, that was exactly what Marasi was doing. This particular chapel was located in the Eighth Octant, about as far from Marasi’s small flat in the Fourth as it was possible to be while still being in Elendel. It had taken the better part of an hour to get there by train, as she’d had to disembark at the central interchange and wait for the appropriate connection, but she had nothing else planned for the day. 

(Wax had left her the motorcar with explicit permission to use it however she needed, but it felt too wasteful when she could get around on foot and via train the way she normally did).

As for _why_ she’d travelled halfway across the city, well…

It went without saying that Marasi Colms was no stranger to guilt. Born in a traditional Survivorist household, the by-blow of the lord of a minor house, with a useless Metalborn power… the list went on and on. So it was no surprise that she’d long been plagued with thoughts about how long it’d been since she’d last been to church, last confessed; essentially since immediately after as she’d moved out of home for the first time and stopped attending, in fact.

In the last few months, though, it had grown worse. No longer merely absent from services, she’d started to flinch even at the sight of a church in passing, or someone swearing by the Survivor’s name. 

Deep wells of guilt that had been dug over painstaking years now filled up, shame running along channels carved into her being. Furrows, directing its flow to where it would weigh her down best, until she finally relented pushing against the tide and let it carry her to the Survivor’s feet.

It hadn’t been some big moment that finally pushed her over the edge - she didn’t work like that, not really. It was a thousand tiny moments, a slowly-building wave of maybes and almosts. Until finally, this morning, she’d laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling, and finally ran out of protests, of excuses. 

(She knew _why_ it had been getting worse. Of course she did. She just pretended she didn’t). 

Even with that conviction, though, she still hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of someone who knew her voice and her name (or even worse, her father), and spilling her guts out to them. It was confidential, of course, but it still felt too fraught, bringing two separate worlds together. 

And so, instead: a church selected at random off a map, where she had never been before and never would be again. 

It was the cowardly way out, but Marasi didn’t have any illusions to the contrary, which had to count for something.

Despite the hall’s apparent emptiness, the faint murmur of speech bounced faintly off the walls, the words themself too quiet to make out. It was clearly coming from the back, though, growing louder as Marasi moved in that direction. 

She almost swore under her breath, before catching herself just in time. Disrespecting a house of the Survivor wasn’t something she needed on her rap sheet, after all, especially not with the more… _colourful_ language she’d started to pick up from Ranette.

The voices went quiet as Marasi neared the front of the pews, and a few moments later, footsteps began to quietly _click_ their way towards her.

Marasi had purposely chosen a time during the late morning, hoping that it would help avoid the possibility of awkward encounters; apparently for nothing. As far as they went, though, this one could have been worse; she and the other person, a woman who looked to be in her sixties judging by her heavily-greying hair, pretended to not notice each other as they crossed paths, Marasi staring up at the rafters above as if she’d noticed something interesting up there while the other woman hurried on by with her head bowed, giving Marasi a wide berth. 

Only when she heard the click of the door from behind her did she lower her eyes and resumed moving, silently thankful that she and a stranger had both been operating from the same script for once. A rare occasion, and one to be treasured.

The confessional was an old, rather traditional setup - Survivorists of course being generally fond of tradition. Marasi was aware of some newer churches opting for a simple screen, but what she was familiar with and what now sat in front of her was a full booth with two compartments, separated by a partition of latticed wood, the pattern small enough that the person on the other side was reduced to nothing more than a vague silhouette. It was a comforting level of anonymity. No eye-contact, no facial expressions, just you and your sins.

The priest evidently hadn’t left yet after the previous confession - Marasi could see a shadow through the more-ornately decorated outer sections. 

“Ah, excellent timing,” a voice said from inside. “I do adore not having to shuffle in and out. Assuming you’re here for confession, that is?”

“I am, father,” Marasi confirmed. 

Shutting the door of the booth behind her,s he took her seat on the wooden bench, feeling it somehow appropriate that the booth was slightly small and cramped, her knees knocking slightly against the opposite wall if she moved wrong. It was familiar, but more than that, it felt _correct_ , that she should be uncomfortable. Let the physical match the emotional. 

Marasi bowed her head, made the sign of the spear - shoulder-sternum-hip - and spoke.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” The formulaic words felt strange in her mouth, awkward shapes to contort her tongue and teeth around. It had been… a while since she’d spoken them last. Years.

“You don’t sound entirely sure,” the voice from the other side of the screen, dry and amused.

Marasi started, glancing over at the latticed wood. “I’m- sorry?” Needless to say, that was _not_ the form she’d been expecting. It wasn’t a- _conversation._ There was a ritual, a script to be followed-

-and that _definitely_ wasn’t on it. She hadn’t even gotten to mention how long it had been since her last confession.

“Just making an observation,” the priest said in that same tone. “I hear conviction is important, for these things.”

By this point, Marasi’s flabber was thoroughly gasted. “If this is some kind of prank,” she began, and then realised that she didn’t have an end for that sentence. 

“No, no,” the priest chuckled, “no prank, I’m sorry. May the Survivor help you be unburdened.”

Marasi relaxed slightly, back in more familiar territory.

“Although given that I don’t recognise your voice, I’m assuming this is more of a drive-by confession, which are, as far as I’m aware, on slightly shakier theological ground.”

Or maybe not.

“What kind of priest _are_ you?” Marasi demanded. 

“If I had to describe myself,” the priest said pensively, “I would say that I place providing guidance over the strictest doctrinal codes.”

“And they let you through seminary school with that?”

He chuckled. “So, what’ll it be? If you want a standard confession, I’m more than happy to oblige you. But you sound more like someone who just needs to talk through some things.”

“...I’m sorry,” Marasi said, chastised.

“Nothing to apologise for. I’m the one who brought it up. So, child, tell me about the sins you’re not confident you committed.”

“That’s not-” Marasi gave up. There were a litany of sins, of course, accumulated over the years. The violence featured prominently, a year and a half now of accumulated gunfighting and the occasional brawl; lying wasn’t far behind. But there was only one that really mattered in the moment.

“I… like women.” That seemed a bit ambiguous, so she forced herself to clarify. “In- the way that most women like men.”

There was a solid second of silence from the other side of the screen, long enough for Marasi’s mind to start playing out all the worst-case scenarios it had already prepared. Then, a deep and weary sigh.

“Right,” the priest said sadly. “Yes. That certainly is against Survivorist doctrine, yes.” Marasi’s heart sank in her chest. “Most would say that you can be absolved of that sin through confession, but is it one you intend to repeat?”

“No!” Marasi immediately protested. “Or- no, but- that’s not why I’m-” 

“Take your time,” he said gently.

Marasi heeded his advice, taking a few deep breaths. 

“I don’t know what to _do_ ,” she admitted, voice hoarse. “I can’t not be like this. I spent twenty-five years trying and it made me miserable. But I _know_ it’s a sin, I _know_ that, Father, and every single day I just find myself flinching away from myself and-” Her breath caught in her throat as she choked back tears. “...I don’t know what to do,” she repeated pitifully. “I don’t know how to be anything but what I am, but I don’t know how to- how to do that, either. How to make it all make _sense_."

For a moment, the two of them sat in silence, in their separate sides of a wooden box. Then, another long, tired sigh, that gripped Marasi’s heart in an icy-cold grip. She braced herself against what was sure to come-

-and thus was caught off-guard when his voice came gentle and soft. “May I tell you a story?” he asked.

“A… story?”

“A relevant one, I promise. I’m fond of stories, you might say. I think they’re an important part of how we understand the world, how the rising ape meets the falling angel.”

Marasi thought of some of the pulp novels she’d read, and silently disagreed. “...I suppose,” she said anyway.

“Excellent. Now, I’m bereft of most of my usual tools, so I’m afraid this isn’t going to be up to my usual standards- but then again, I don’t suppose that matters very much to you.” He cleared his throat. “Imagine… a man.”

“Any man?”

The priest chuckled. “It’s not the kind of story with audience participation, I’m afraid. But no, not just any man. A man who distinguished himself above others, until he distinguished himself above _man_ as a category, sacrificing himself for his people and so inspiring them to rise up.”

“The Survivor,” Marasi said. Despite his protests, the priest _was_ a good storyteller, at least to her mind. “It’s the Survivor, right?”

“Kelsier, the Survivor of Hathsin. A man of living paradox, because despite his most famous, most resonant act being one of _sacrifice_ , his single, solitary tenet was the exact opposite. _Survive._ ”

As he said it, Marasi almost thought she heard another voice overlaid on top of it. Something… harsher, laced with razor-sharp charm and charisma.

“And around this imperative grew adherents, and around adherents grew a church, and around the church, the world came to an end- only to be born anew.”

The Catacendre. Harmony’s ascension, ash clearing from the skies. 

_“It was so..._ impossibly _blue that I was convinced that if I looked away for even a second, it would be grey again when I looked back.”_

“This church and its followers have upheld their prophet’s belief- they have _survived._ But although the new land crafted for them is a gentle one, it is not without its own dangers. Only a fraction of the population of the old empire had made it through the disasters that signified its end, and if they were to avoid the crippling diseases of the body talked of in ancient Terris texts, ensuring a diverse and populous new generation was of the highest priority, if they were to _survive._ ”

Again, that imagined second voice. This time, though, it had an otherworldly quality to it, as if someone had heard the first voice and attempted to recreate it as something glorious.

“Imagine, then, a people for whom _reproduction_ is of the highest religious imperative, but who also have values inherited from their previous societies, values about monogamy and marriage and fidelity. To these people, then, a marriage that bore no children was a tree that bore no fruit - a fundamental incompatibility with their faith. Armed with that, and a simplistic understanding of biology, they declared that homosexuality was disallowed, anathema to survival.”

Marasi frowned. “What are you trying to say?”

“Right now? That the story isn’t done yet.”

“...sorry.”

“Now, finally, imagine those people, a century later. Their population has been rebuilt, their genetic diversity secured.” _Genetic?_ “And yet, the codes of their church are the same as they were a hundred years ago. Different people feel differently about this, as different people are wont to do. But in this case, these disagreements grow more volatile, as the split between those who follow the church’s history and those who raise their core tenet above all else. And so, with all of that setup, we find ourselves perfectly placed as we arrive at the Jakonite Council. The first great doctrinal split of the newborn religion. Based on most accounts, it came very close to causing a full-blown schism in the faith.”

“A- what?” Marasi almost laughed out of sheer confusion. She understood what the words meant individually, could even infer some kind of presumed meaning, but they still didn’t make _sense._

“Ah, yes. I forget, sometimes, how young all these religions are. Suffice to say, then, that if the topic had not been declared _in pectore,_ it would’ve likely split the Church of the Survivor in half. As it was, though, you can surely guess which side won, and the Church persisted as it had until then, right up until this day.”

A thought struck Marasi. “Wait, if it’s been declared _in pectore,_ should you really be telling me about it, then?”

There was a soft chuckle. “Nothing to worry about. Do you understand why I did?”

Marasi opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wasn’t sure she understood why this strange priest had done _anything_ so far. “To show me that… the church is flawed?” she tried.

“Mm. Not _quite._ What it means, as far as I see it, is that you are not the first to struggle like this, and you won’t be the last. The question of institution versus faith is not a new one.”

“But- it’s not _about_ that, not for me.”

“Only you can ultimately decide that,” he said pensively. “But what it means to _you,_ is deciding whether or not everything of our faith is secondary to that singular command, the single word the Survivor himself gave us,-”

“- _survive_ ,” Marasi said along with him, a little reverent. “So... you’re saying-”

“Not _saying_ ,” he clarified. “Merely… asking. What do you value the most? Is it our Church itself, the comfort of ritual and unity, a familiar stability throughout your life and a shared belief that the Survivor’s hand guides our movements as a people and an institution?”

He paused, long enough that Marasi almost answered him ‘yes’.

“Or,” he continued, voice pitched low in a manner that Marasi couldn’t help but think of as dramatic. “Is it more fundamental than that? Do you believe in _survival_ above all else? And if so, what does that look like in this world so far removed from the one the Survivor knew?”

Marasi froze, caught in-between the two options. It was an impossible choice, wasn’t it? Both things were fundamental, _vital,_ even. You couldn’t have a religion without any pure belief at the core of it, but if all you had was that core, then you had a platitude, not a faith. 

But- 

What did it mean, then, if those two elements were in conflict? 

Marasi shook herself out of her reverie. In her ramblings, she’d started to forget herself, started to act as if her own struggles were somehow factual representations of the faith rather than what they actually were. Which was just that; _her_ struggles, _her_ shortcomings, _her_ inability to reconcile herself with Survivorism, to _be_ reconciled. To be something that could exist within it, of it, to have something she could point to and say ‘yes, this is me’, ‘yes, this is where I fit’-

To _know._

To be _certain._

“I… I don’t know,” she admitted. “This is a lot to take in.”

The priest chuckled again, that same warm sound with an undercurrent of amusement that was just _slightly_ too sharp. “It wasn’t an actual question,” he clarified. “Just a thought exercise. Would you describe yourself as someone who lives by ‘out of sight, out of mind’?”

“...saying yes wouldn’t be very out of mind, would it.”

“True enough.”

“And _if_ I admitted to that, I’d describe it as more aspirational than actual. Hypothetically speaking.”

“Of course. Hypothetically speaking, then, it’s good to think about these things, as obvious as it sounds. You can’t unpick a problem by ignoring it.”

Marasi laughed a little. “But it’s quite a bit easier.”

“Indeed,” the priest agreed wryly. “So, does that help?”

Marasi thought about it. She didn’t feel like all her issues had been magically resolved, but if nothing else, she had a new line of thought to investigate, rather than spiralling down the old ones. “...I’m not sure. Maybe it’s too early to tell.”

“Well, I suppose I could certainly get worse results than that.”

Marasi chuckled. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me not to sin again?”

“Would that have helped you?” the priest countered. “If nothing else, I try to be productive.”

“I’m not sure,” Marasi repeated, self-aware. “Maybe it’s too early to tell.”

“It almost always is,” the priest agreed. “May the Survivor walk with you, then. _Wherever_ your path leads you.” Marasi couldn’t see his face, but she could tell that there was a knowing smirk on it.

“And with you,” she replied absently, already thinking about his words as she stood and exited the booth. 

As she walked away, a thought occurred to Marasi in between her ruminations. It felt oddly delayed, like her brain was putting together pieces it should’ve been able to assemble earlier. In fact, even as it came to mind, it was slipping away again, fading into nothingness like a mistwraith.

But, just for that fleeting moment, something struck Marasi as odd

The priest’s voice had sounded youthful, almost spritely. 

But surely that couldn’t be right, because for just a second as she’d stood up, she’d caught a glimpse through the panelling of bright, snow-white hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marasi Has Become Catholic  
> \-----  
> sorry about the missed week. im dealing with some IRL stuff right now, so things might be spotty for the next little while.  
> notes:  
> \- not even trying to pretend that survivorism is anything but reskinned xtianity at this point  
> \- im not xtian but also i dont care if i got things wrong so dont @ me  
> \- i know all the latin has been high imperial before but i just cant. i just cant do it anymore. im not strong enough.  
> \- maybe i am. maybe ill only do it when i think its funny. we’ll see  
> \- the most unexpected skill i've had to use while writing these fics is attribution, because finding the actual source of some of these quotes has been two entire bitches


	4. A Physical Metaphor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > "I think swords are neat do you think swords are neat!!"  
> A sword is a tool designed to inflict pain and death on a fellow human!  
> Often spiritualised and glorified, they also serve as **a physical metaphor** for humanity's endless, savage thirst for destruction! 
> 
> \- Tom Siddell, _Gunnerkrigg Court_

“Pull.”

The small clay target flickered past Marasi in her peripheral vision. She tracked it down the sights of the rifle as it flew diagonally across the firing range, and breathed out as she squeezed the trigger. 

The rifle bucked in her hands as it fired, the sound muted by her earmuffs, but her shot was slightly off, nicking the pigeon with a spray of shards rather than shattering it entirely. 

“Darn,” she said sourly, lowering the rifle. “So much for third time’s the charm.” She cleared the rifle’s chamber, and checked it was fully unloaded before turning around and handing it back to Ranette, keeping the barrel pointed at the ground the entire time.

“S’fine,” the gunsmith said dismissively, taking her rifle back in one gloved hand. She held up the other, and a second later the spent shell Marasi had just fired zipped into her waiting palm. “Hit or miss, it’s still good data.”

“What was this one?” Marasi asked curiously. Ranette often handed her guns to fire without explaining what exactly she was testing. Sometimes, it was genuinely just an ordinary rifle and ammunition, which didn’t help either. Marasi hadn’t felt anything significantly different about the rifle as she handled it, but something about that shot was niggling at her. She’d gotten proficient enough at shooting to subsume most of the process into instinct, and her instincts told her that she should’ve made that shot.

Ranette grinned, just wide enough to reveal the missing molar on one side. “You tell me,” she said, tossing the crumpled piece of metal to her. 

Marasi caught it in one hand, familiar by now with the other woman’s tendency to never hand something over when she could throw it instead (which she personally suspected was something to do with being a Lurcher). The round was still warm to the touch, but not painfully so, and she pulled up her goggles to take a closer look. 

At first brush, it looked like a standard round, crumpled like a tin can where it had impacted the back wall. It was wider that one, though, and had an oddly regular pattern to how it had split and crumpled. It almost looked like an X, in fact - like when it had split, it had done so along predetermined seams like a fruit.

“These bits here…” Marasi murmured, running a fingernail along the edge of one of the protruding sections. “Did you score the round to create a more regular profile on impact? To what end, though?”

“Not quite the right metal,” Ranette said, “but in the right alloy.”

“So not impact, then…” Maybe not when the bullet _hit,_ but before it did? She thought of the shot, how it had clipped the back of the moving pigeon even though she’d been certain it should’ve hit in the centre. “Did it split _before_ the impact? For- drag?”

Ranette clicked her tongue in confirmation. “Dead-on.”  
“Huh.” Marasi looked at the round again. “So… it’s designed to split apart. Does it do that as soon as it fires?” Before Ranette could even answer, Marasi shook her head, dismissing the theory. “No, then it’d get caught in the barrel. I _suppose_ if you ran a lot of tests and measured your powder very precisely, you could figure out how to make it split from air drag around the same point each time. So _that’s_ why I missed.”

“Yeah,” Ranette confirmed. “Was thinking if I get it to slow down just right, turn it less lethal, something like that.”

“Hm…” Marasi turned the round over in her hand. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job…”

Ranette squinted at her. “People only ever say that when they’re about to tell me how to do my job.”

Marasi couldn’t really deny that, so she chose to power on instead. “I’m not sure how viable that idea is? I mean, you’d have to slow it down an _absurd_ amount to make it not penetrate - I don’t think the amount you’re going to get from flaps this small is going to make enough difference? Not to mention the way it’s always going to pop at the exact same distance, so unless you’re shooting at a perfectly still target, you’re gonna have to compensate for it differently based on… well, every single other factor? Wax _might_ be able to do that, but not anyone else. I certainly couldn’t.”

Ranette sighed, looking irritated. “...yeah. Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“S’fine,” she said, waving the apology down. “Asked ‘n’ answered. ‘Sides, I honestly think I knew it was a stupid idea anyway. Just had to get it out of my head to make sure.” She made a little beckoning gesture with two fingers, and Marasi tossed the shell into the air for her to Pull on. 

“And how many hours did you spend working on it just to ‘make sure’?” Marasi asked dryly. 

“...piss off, that’s how many,” Ranette grumbled.

Ranette and Misra’s house was a moderately-sized domicile in the Third Octant; backed onto a park, it was an odd single-story construction that took advantage of the property’s unusual length. It was built in a L shape, with the bulk of the house at the front, but a section continuing down all the way to the back along one side, leaving a small, paved courtyard open to the air in the other rear corner. Most of Ranette’s bulkier smithing equipment - her forge and blacksmithing tools - were kept outside, along with neatly sorted piles of scrap metal and boxes of ingots, sheltered from rain by a moderate lean-to. The firing range took up most of the rest of the back half of the house, stretching down the long extended section and backing directly onto Ranette’s workshop space, which occupied the rest of the extended section and part of the ‘main’ house. 

The walls were lined with thick, quilted fabric to muffle the sound of gunfire, covering the windows entirely and leaving the lighting to a large collection of mismatched bulbs. According to Ranette, she’d had so much trouble trying to figure out how to proof the bulbs against shrapnel that she’d eventually given up, accepted they’d shatter, and started keeping plenty of spares on hand. 

The workshop, thankfully, was far less haphazard. While Ranette dropped the round into a barrel of scrap and returned the rifle to its place on the wall, Marasi leant by the main workbench, eyeing the scattered drawings and projects sitting there. Half of a revolver barrel caught her eye, something about the shine of the metal, and she picked it up to take a closer look. There was a time when she wouldn’t have touched a thing without express permission, but Ranette had made it clear on multiple occasions that she didn’t, quote, ‘give a shit’, unless gunpowder was involved.

On closer inspection, there was definitely something different about the alloy - the metal was still rough and unfinished, so it definitely wasn’t something that had been applied to it afterward. 

“Oh, hey,” Ranette said as she returned to the workbench, placing something on top of it before settling down onto her stool. “Early stages, that one.”

Marasi lined up the barrel with one eye, staring down through the rifled interior to try and spot anything unique about it. “Early stages of what?”

“You got your metal?”

Marasi shook her head. 

“Huh. Okay. Well, it’s made of a new alloy I’ve been experimenting with. Trying to find how little aluminium I can use and still get the effect.”

“Aluminium? I thought you couldn’t afford it?” Marasi could think of countless times when an aluminium gun would’ve saved her so much trouble over the last year and a half.

“Couldn’t,” Ranette confirmed. “We’ve been doing well, though, and I got a good deal from a new supplier. Trying to make some parts I can swap into Vindication when Wax brings her back.” No matter how long Waxillium had been using the pistol, Ranette still thought of it as hers. She viewed Wax as just a caretaker, a sitter for her baby, as Misra had jokingly called it a few times.

“Hm,” Marasi mused, tapping it a few times with a nail. “Did this one work?”

In response, Ranette Pulled on it slightly - not enough to shake Marasi’s grasp, just a quick tug. 

“Shame.” She handed it back, and glanced down at the piece Ranette had brought over. “What’s this one, then?”

“Oh,” Ranette chuckled. “Thought you’d get a laugh out of this one.” She pushed it slightly across the workbench, bringing it fully into view.

“Is this…” Marasi picked up the mechanism and stared at it for a few seconds, absolutely puzzled. “What _is_ this?”

Ranette cracked a smirk. “Dumb, innit? Been callin’ it the revolver-revolver.”

“The… revolver-revolver?” As she repeated the name, it clicked together with the shape of the mechanism. “Oh, you’re kidding me.” With the name as context, she could now see that it was a revolving mechanism to rotate _smaller revolver cylinders_ , swapping out the cylinder for another one like the cylinders themselves swapped out chambers. It was…

“This is the worst idea I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Marasi said flatly.

“I’ve seen worse,” Ranette replied. “I ever tell you about the arrow gun?”

“Ooh, yeah.” Marasi winced, dredging the story up from her memories. “You didn’t, but I’ve read about it.”

“Bet wherever you read it didn’t include _how_ it killed him, though.”

“Er, yes it did, actually. The shrapnel blew off his hand and he bled to death, didn’t he?”  
“Well, sure,” Ranette replied. “But it weren’t _just_ his hand that got blown off.”

It took a few seconds and a slight gesture from Ranette for Marasi to get it, but when she did, she couldn’t hold in an ugly snort.

“Oh, that’s _terrible,_ ” she breathed, more amused than she’d like. “Survivor, I _really_ shouldn’t find a man’s death that funny.”

“Eh, who cares. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” 

“I suppose,” Marasi allowed. “Who’s this stupid game for, then?” she asked, gesturing at the revolver-revolver.

“Private commission,” was Ranette’s grunted explanation. “Real popular, after it started getting around that I make Wax’s guns.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Marasi asked. “More stable income?”

Ranette made a non-commital noise, and gestured for Marasi to move to one side. She followed the instruction, and a second later a ratchet wrench flew through the space Marasi had been occupying, hitting Ranette’s outstretched palm with a meaty _smack._

“Money’s good,” she explained, turning to lean over the project on her desk. “Obviously. And yeah, stable income, but…” She trailed off like she had before, a frown tugging at her lips. 

This was far more introspection than Marasi normally saw from the other woman. “Can I ask something? _Two_ somethings,” she quickly corrected, pre-empting the canned joke she could see the other woman preparing.

“That’s one."

“Why non-lethal?” Marasi asked. “No offense, but I didn’t think that was your… area of interest, so to speak.”

“S’not,” Ranette acknowledged. “Or, wasn’t, anyway. These days, I’unno.” She huffed out a breath, shoulders slumping. “Thinking about some stuff.”

Marasi nodded, accepting that as all the answer she was going to get. To her surprise, though, Ranette huffed out a breath, leaning over her bench with her head propped up on one arm, and continued.

“...I didn’t realise how different it’d be,” she said after a moment, staring into the middle distance. “Here, from the Roughs. Y’know I was born out there?”

“I’d guessed as much, but you’d never explicitly said.”

“Yeah. Grew up in a whorehouse, actually.” Marasi blinked, eyes wide, and Ranette must have misinterpreted “Good people, don’t worry. Closest thing to family for a long time; brought me up, taught me numbers, taught me to shoot. Point is, Roughs was all I ever knew, more than most. N’when we moved here, well… The difference got pretty obvious pretty quick.”

“Difference?”

Ranette sighed. “It’s… _simple_ , out there. Simpler, anyway. Lawman’s he what catches criminals, criminals is they what do crimes, and crimes is real things. Shot someone, stole shit; _real_ things, y’know? Lawmen, they’re… reactive. Don’t do nothing, nothing gets done. Come to the city, though…” she sighed again. “There’s all these _laws_ , laws about nonsense shit, and constables ain’t lawmen cause they enforce ‘em _all._ No lawman ever gave out parking tickets, that’s for damn sure. Out there, making guns for people like Ladrian or LaRue or Valjen, that felt like _honest_ work. Like I was doin’ something worthwhile, y’know? Makin’ sure the good guy had that little extra edge against the bad guy, makin’ sure that if one of ‘em was gonna be standin’, it was the one who deserved it. Here…”

She threw up her hands with a frustrated blast of air, the biggest non-anger display of emotion Marasi had ever seen from her. 

“It’s all a _mess_ ,” she finished. “‘Part from you ‘n’ Ladrian, ain’t no-one else I can feel comfortable selling to.” Marasi was quietly flattered by being placed on the same level, but tried not to show it. “Ain’t no other real lawmen, constabulary ain’t buyin’ custom, so all that’s left is rich assholes wantin’ party pieces or some fancy bullshit for hunting.”

“You don’t approve?” Marasi asked. “Of the hunting, I mean.”

“For food, sure. Not… shootin’ pheasants on a country estate. S’pointless slaughter.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Oh, I fully agree with you,” Marasi said. “Just… curious.”

“Mm.” Ranette fell silent, and Marasi felt like it wouldn’t have been proper to let her setbrood. Or, not ‘proper’, no - more like ‘right’. 

“Why _did_ you move to the city?” Marasi asked. “If that’s not overstepping.”

Ranette chuckled ruefully, jerking her head in the direction of the house. “Why d’ya think? We’d talked about it for years and years, and every time it got a little more serious, until one day I realised that I was the only thing keeping her from actually doing it. And, well… wasn’t like I had much out there, anyway. Nothin’ that compared for sure.”

“That’s… quite sweet, actually.”

“Hey,” Ranette scowled, “don’t sound so surprised. I can be rustin’ sweet, if I want.”

“Of course,” Marasi said dryly. “Who wouldn’t think that, looking at you?” The other woman’s acerbic sense of humour had taken some getting used to, but Marasi was starting to grow comfortable with it, to the point that she occasionally fired back in turn. 

Ranette’s response consisted of a rude gesture, accompanied by a scowl that Marasi could now recognise as not having any actual anger behind it, and she just chuckled in response. 

“I invite you to my home,” Ranette grumbled as she stood up, “and this is how you treat me?”

“Oh, it’s _your_ home now?” 

“Shut up.” She started moving in the direction of the kitchen. “You want tea?”

Marasi glanced outside the window. It was an unseasonably warm spring day, the sun burning bright and clear in a blue sky.

“Tea would be nice,” she said. 

* * *

“Misra?”

“In here!” 

Marasi followed Misra’s voice to the door of her small studio. The door was already ajar, so she just knocked once before poking her head through the gap.

Where the workshop was Ranette’s domain, the studio was Misra’s. It was a small space, but bright and airy, with windows on three of the four walls. It had probably been a sunroom at some point, but all the furniture had been removed, and the walls and floor covered with old, stained sheets. One corner of the room was dedicated entirely to paints - canvases and other materials propped up against the walls, a small chest of supplies, a rickety easel bearing a half-finished painting of an indeterminate subject in browns and blues. That was where Misra stood currently, dressed in loose, paint-stained clothing and absently chewing on the end of a paintbrush. 

It wasn’t visible from her position, but Marasi knew from past visits that the opposite corner held a battered old desk, with piles of paper stacked on top of it and spilling over onto the floor, held down with spent shells or bits of scrap metal. A few corkboards were hung on the wall or propped up against it, covered with broadsheet clippings and handwritten notes, in a very similar manner to Marasi’s research space in her apartment. Where she was meticulous and organised, though, Misra tended towards more of a… idiomatic chaos, to put it politely. 

(Misra insisted that she knew where everything was, and it even seemed to be true, but Marasi was categorically mistrustful of that style of… ‘organisation’). 

Marasi still wasn’t _entirely_ sure what it was Misra did, apart from the art. It was political, she knew that much, and that there were multiple different… groups? Organisations? That she was a part of in some way. In _what_ way, though, and what that actually entailed, was still mostly murky. 

Maybe she kept it that way, out of fear that it would somehow prove to be relevant to her work. 

“Hey,” Marasi said when Misra didn’t turn around. “Ranette’s making tea, if you want something.”

“Be there in a minute,” she replied distractedly, still staring at her painting. “Hey, while you’re here, I could use a second set of eyes on this.”

“Oh- sure?” Marasi stepped inside. “You know I’ve got no clue about art, though?”

“You’ve _seen_ art, haven’t you? Sometimes it’s just good to get an outside perspective.”

The canvas was mostly covered, with only a small section in the upper corner still uncoloured beige. The paints were predominantly earth tones, soil-browns and rust-reds and dust-oranges, with the exception of a single section in the centre in cool blues and greys. Marasi squinted, and thought she could maybe turn it into the shape of a building, if she tried.

“What am I looking at?” she asked.

Misra grinned. “I want to hear your guess, first.” When Marasi glanced at her, she held up her hands defensively. “For artistic purposes, I promise.”

“Hrm…” Marasi _really_ didn’t know anything about art, but scrounging through her memories turned up some phrases she’d heard other people say. “I think it’s fairly obvious that you’re going for _some_ kind of contrast here, but to be honest, I don’t know _what._ This middle bit is very… striking? Is it a building? A skyscraper?”

Misra made a little ‘go on’ gesture.

“So, then… is this,” she gestured at the earthy surrounds, “the Roughs? Or just- earth, soil, nature? Something of that sort? And you’re contrasting with the man-made buildings in some sort of commentary?”

Misra bit her lip, trying not to smile. “That is all a _fascinating_ interpretation, Marasi. Truly it is.”

“Oh no.”

“Unfortunately, it’s _meant_ to be a water-filled bootprint in mud.”

Marasi blinked, then took a step back and squinted. “...oh. Oh, rust it. Dammit. It is, isn’t it?”

Misra couldn’t contain her laughter anymore. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she said, holding up her hands. “It really was very good analysis!”

“How?” Marasi grumbled. “It was for a painting that doesn’t exist.”

“Still good!” She glanced back at the canvas, already lifting her paintbrush back to her mouth. “And… hm. You _may_ have just given me an idea. If I clear up the reflection… show the skyline… hm… that could work…”

“So, er,” Marasi said as Misra continued to mumble to herself, “I’ll just… go, then?”

Misra started. “Oh, right,” she said apologetically. “I’ll be along in a few minutes; just want to ride this wave.”

Before she’d even finished talking, she was turning back to her canvas, picking up her palette from the stack of crates beside her, a barely-audible, mumbled monologue already picking back up. 

Marasi took the cue, and her leave.

(On the way out, though, she couldn’t resist taking a quick glance at Misra’s workspace in the opposite corner. Not out of any sense of voyeurism, just idle curiosity. Most of it was illegible from a distance, but there were a few clippings of broadsheet headlines in their larger, bolded fonts. One read ‘ICE STRIKES SPARK FIRE’’; another was half-hidden beneath another piece of paper, but she could make out the words ‘TAX’ and ‘WORKERS’.)

She returned to the kitchen to find Ranette pouring the tea into two battered workman’s mugs and the single nice teacup she always used for Marasi. Her continued insistence on doing so, even after Marasi had protested it, had her convinced that it was the other woman’s idea of a joke.

Ranette nodded to her as she walked in. “Here,” Ranette said, handing Marasi the steaming cup. “Careful, it’s still-”

Marasi took a long sip, and sighed happily, only just resisting the urge to smack her lips. “Perfect, thank you.”

Ranette rolled her eyes, used to it by now. “Don’t know why I bother. Bet you’d drink straight from the kettle if you could.”

“Hey,” Marasi objected. “Liking hot drinks doesn’t mean I don’t have _manners_.” To emphasise the point, she took another sip, deliberately sticking her pinky out in an exaggerated manner and making Ranette snort her own tea up her nose.

Marasi had been surprised to find out that Ranette was the homemaker in their relationship. For whatever reason, she’d just sort of assumed it was Misra who handled those things - and while it wasn’t like one worked while the other lazed around, Ranette usually cooked and cleaned, at least in Marasi’s experience. It was a surprisingly domestic trait for a rough, brusque gunsmith. 

(And of course, the one time they’d invited her round and Misra had cooked had been… a unique experience).

For a few minutes, the two of them enjoyed their tea in silence - Ranette’s milky and unsweetened, Marasi’s black but tooth-rottingly sweet - before the quiet clack of footsteps heralded the arrival of Misra, bustling around the corner with even more paint stains than when Marasi had seen her last.  
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, snagging a biscuit from the table and washing it down with a swig of her tea - black with an anis pod - before she’d even finished chewing. She dropped into a chair next to her partner and planting a quick kiss on her cheek. “What were the two of you not talking about?”

“Some people,” Ranette said, “actually _enjoy_ silence.”

“Hm, no, that doesn’t sound right.” Misra turned towards Marasi. “Sorry for not asking after things earlier, by the by. Bit of a lapse of manners.” 

“No need to apologise,” Marasi replied. “I saw you two days ago, not two years.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ranette grunted. “How’d that go?”

Marasi and Misra both made a face simultaneously. 

“It… could’ve been worse?” Misra offered.

“Told you she’d prefer poker night,” Ranette murmured, elbowing Misra in the side.

“It was fine,” Marasi equivocated. “Just not… _quite_ my scene, I don’t think.”

Misra’s face fell slightly. “You sure? I can talk to Lin.”

“Lin?” Ranette asked. “Cousin Lin?”

“Do we know any other Lins?”

“Lin from the butchers.”

“Oh, yeah. Cousin Lin, then. You think I’m inviting Lin from the butchers out to drinks?”

Marasi hid a smile behind one hand as she watched them bicker. It was… comforting. To see that people like them could have that kind of casual intimacy. People like her. “It’s fine, Misra. To be honest, I still don’t quite understand what actually _happened_ there.”

Misra frowned, her lips pursing. “It’s… kind of complicated? And, uh. Delicate.”

“Delicate in what way?”

“Delicate like she doesn’t-”

“Captain Colms?”

At the sound of an unfamiliar voice, slightly muffled, all three of them spun around, both Marasi and Ranette’s hands dropping to their firearms.

A young woman that Marasi didn’t recognise was standing in the courtyard outside the window, wearing a constabulary uniform and a sheepish expression. 

Marasi sighed, and removed her hand from her pistol.  
“Oi,” Ranette snapped. “Private property, dickhead.”

The constable winced. “Extremely sorry, ma’am. I tried ringing the doorbell and knocking, but no-one answered, and it’s rather urgent.”

Ranette scowled, but didn’t say anything. Nor, Marasi noticed, did Misra, who had gone completely still. 

“I’m assuming Reddi sent you,” she asked the young woman, noting the band on her sleeve that indicated she was a Coinshot.

“Aye, ma’am. There’s been a robbery at Second Central. He said to tell you ‘six days’? Said you’d know what it meant?”

And just like that, all hopes of a quiet few weeks vanished like mist in the morning sun. “I do,” Marasi confirmed miserably. “Well… _blast_.”

“You off?” Ranette asked as she stood.

“Sorry,” Marasi confirmed, doing a quick mental check of her outfit. “It’s probably important.” Thin grey skirt, short sleeved pale blue blouse, comfortable boots. Not as professional as she’d have liked, but it was probably excusable given the circumstances. “Constable…?”

“Jana, ma’am.”

“Constable Jana, I’ll meet you out the front.” The younger officer nodded, then disappeared upwards on a Push. “Sorry again,” she added to Ranette and Misra, the latter of whom seemed perfectly fine now. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Is it really that urgent?” Misra asked. “And on a Sunday? I thought you were a Survivorist?”

Marasi cracked a humourless grin at that. “Well, I’m not a very good one.”

She waved goodbye as she ducked out towards the front door, stopping only to grab her bag and sling it over her chest. The constable was indeed waiting for her outside, and she snapped to attention as Marasi emerged.

“Second Central, you said?” Marasi asked without any preamble, glancing around for a motorcar or carriage. “From here, that’s probably…”

Jana coughed awkwardly.

Marasi looked around at the palpable lack of a vehicle, then down at the Coinshot marker on her uniform, then back up.

At the very least, Jana didn’t seem any happier about it than she was. “The constable-general said… as quickly as possible.”

Marasi sighed, pinching her brow. “Of course. Please tell me that you at least don’t have to princess-carry me?”

“...it’s that or over the shoulder, ma’am.”

“...princess carry it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's that? its PLOT, COMING IN WITH THE STEEL CHAIR
> 
> sorry for the missed updates. its a weird time, and im dealing with moving stuff. 
> 
> notes:  
> \- isaac newton had a theory of air resistance so i think we're good with concepts of aerodynamics and drag being a thing. go me, already establishing marasi has forensic ballistics knowledge  
> \- >gunnerkrigg sword quote  
> and you're like 'that's the same joke twice'  
> \- yeah it is. call the cops bitch ill have sex with them  
> \- the secret come out: every single plotting decision ive made in any of these fics has ultimately been based around the desire to avoid having marasi melaan and misra in the same scene, because the amount of times ive typed out the wrong name with just pairs is bad enough  
> \- i know marasi's drink preferences probably seem horrifying but i actually ascribe to this principle in real life. if a hot drink doesnt burn your tongue then whats even the point


	5. The Critic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only **the critic**.
> 
> \- G.K. Chesterton, _The Blue Cross: A Father Brown Mystery_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: blood, dead bodies.  
> i know thats not exactly new for this series or canon but here is a bit more clinical and after-the-fact than the run of the mill gun violence in canon

There was something uniquely awful about the smell of decaying corpses.

Marasi’s first introductions to the human body had come in a classroom environment, the copper tang of blood balanced or even outweighed by sharp, chemical formaldehyde. It had been a safe, clinical experience; as much as corpses ever were, anyway. So it wasn't like she was squeamish - in fact, she'd argue she had a stronger stomach than most, having seen not only her fair share of dead bodies and internal organs but the unnatural contortions of flesh that came with a k-

...the point _was_ , that even with all her experience, the sickly-sweet odour of rotting flesh mixed with the open sewer stink of post-mortem voidings had never quite lost its ability to call her last meal up for a return visit, and that was when there was only one corpse.

Inside of the main vault of the Second Central Bank, there were nine.

They were dressed in dark, nondescript clothing - the exact sort of thing you'd wear if you didn't want to be identified - and didn't seem to be divided along any clear ethnic lines. It might've been death pallor, but one appeared to have the cold blue-tinted skin of someone with koloss blood, and another looked to be Terris. 

You didn't have to be an expert to figure out what had happened, and Marasi _was_ one. The corpses were in two groups of four on either side of the vault, with the exception of one that was a few feet away from their group, propped up against the wall, head slumped down onto their chest. Where blood wasn't pooled underneath the corpses, it was sprayed across the walls behind them, or dragged in a smear across the ground behind the lone corpse. Firearms lay near the hands that they had fallen from, along with spent shells and a few unfired rounds. Slugs were buried in the walls behind both groups, but not nearly enough to account for the number of casings - it wasn't much of a leap that the ones that hadn't rolled underneath the bodies were currently still inside them. 

At first pass, the rest of the vault seemed otherwise normal - most of the individual compartments were still closed, and no notes lay scattered about the way she'd seen in other, more hurried robberies. The few compartments that were open, though, were completely empty. 

"...well, rust," she said.

From behind her, Josette chuckled grimly. "That's about the reaction I had, yeah," her fellow detective said.

The world's most uncomfortable Coinshot journey had brought Marasi to the premises of Second Central bank in a fraction of the time it would've taken via train, and still significantly quicker than by motorcar. The bank itself was located on the edge of the central business district that surrounded the Field - not quite at the tip of the octant's slice-of-pie shape, but closer to it than the middle, just beyond the second ringway. The bank had already been cordoned off when she arrived, constabulary motorcars from the second, third and fourth precincts crowding the curb. Why the other two were there was still unclear to Marasi; when she'd asked after Reddi, she'd been told he was with the other precincts' Constable-Generals and not to be disturbed, and so instead she'd gotten a spare constable to direct her to the site of the crime itself; the bank's main vault, behind the main commercial area, through a series of locked doors and descending down into the ground. 

There was no tectonic activity in the Basin, and so the subterranean vault had grown in prominence over the years. With all secure locations, restricting access to a single chokepoint was advice so basic as to be ubiquitous, and burying a vault achieved that easily while also preventing, say, a handful of Lurchers and a Nicroburst from tearing the entire vault straight out of the building.

(That one had been before Marasi's time, and she'd found it far more impressive before she'd held all that power and more on her own).

Modern infrastructure made tunneling infeasible, but Marasi made a mental note to recommend that any surrounding buildings with basements be canvassed, just in case. Just because it was a bad idea, didn't mean people wouldn't try it.

"Who discovered the bodies?" Marasi asked, not looking away from the scene. It was a technique she'd picked up from Lord Waxillium, letting the entire scene settle into her mind with focusing on any one aspect. Studies had shown that-

"The general manager," Josette answered, interrupting her musings. "About an hour ago."

"The same manager who closed up the previous night?"

"Different, actually. We've got them both booked to be interviewed, before you start telling us how to do our jobs."

Marasi swallowed down the comment she'd been about to make. "Wouldn’t dream of it. No-one’s been inside?” It was a bit of a rhetorical question, given the bloodstains across the floor that would’ve retained footprints.

“Nope. The general manager called the Second, one of the constables called in the Cee-Gee, and next thing I know we’re all here while they yell behind closed doors.”

"Wonderful," Marasi murmured, still staring at the scene from the entrance to the vault. “How did they get in?”

“To the building or to the vault?”  
“Both.”  
“Well, the lock for the employee entrance in the alleyway had been melted out of its socket, but the front entrance had _also_ been opened, either via lockpick or key."

Marasi nodded. "Start checking-" She cut herself off just in time, remembering that she wasn't in charge of the case. 

Josette clearly noticed her slip, but didn't comment on it. "Either way, the alarms didn't go off from either entry, which we're going to have to look into. Hopefully, it was just some kind of mechanical failure or sabotage, because if not…"

"-it probably means one of the employees was involved " Marasi finished. That would complicate things. "Here's to hoping."

"Mm," Josette agreed. "Harmony willin' and the creek don't rise. As for the vault… no clue. Alarm certainly never went off. Sorry, _alarms,_ plural.”

"It's a Lavari, right?"

"One of their customs, yeah."

"Rusting _wonderful._ " Lavari-Edmons were highly regarded for the quality of their safes and vaults, but also had a notorious reputation for privacy and non-compliance with authorities. A common story was that after a piece had been constructed, the working blueprints were destroyed, to ensure that there was no chance of them falling into the wrong hands.

Personally, Marasi found that a bit fantastical. There was no doubt, however, that the company deserved at least part of its reputation - they had no publically-listed storefront, and received orders through an intermediary, a highly-paid solicitor's office. 

(She knew all of this because one of their safes had been involved in a fairly high-profile robbery a number of years ago, one that Lord Waxillium had eventually solved. In that particular case, it transpired that the robbers had blown up the vault to disguise the fact that they had used the keys rather than some design fault, which they'd acquired through a very long-term honeypot of the bank's Chief Manager. Seeing as Marasi was currently standing in the very-much-intact vault, she doubted that it was of much relevance to this particular case).

"Y'know," Josette said, sounding amused, "I think I've heard you swear more in the last ten minutes than the rest of the time I've known you combined."

Had she been swearing? "Perhaps it's the corpses," she replied dryly.

“No complaints here, ma’am.” Marasi still had the instinct to flinch away from the honorific, but she _was_ the other woman’s superior officer, even if only technically. "You going to take a closer look?"

"Not yet," Marasi replied absently. "I don't want to disturb the bodies."

"Disturb? Captain, they're _dead._ You don't exactly have to wait for permission- begging your pardon, obviously."

"Not like that. The decomposition can be affected by- well, it doesn't matter. Trust me when I say that even something as small as a person's breath can affect the bodies." She was exaggerating for effect slightly, but she thought it best to get the point across.

"... alright," Josette said sceptically. "That definitely sounds more important than getting the _corpses_ out of the room."

"Maybe." Marasi squinted, trying to puzzle out the scene in front of her. Why had she been called in for this? Why had the Fourth Precinct, even? This was solidly within the Second Precinct's purview.

She could try and figure it out, but that was antithetical to the whole point of being part of an organisation.

"Alright," she sighed, "just tell me what I'm missing."

Josette gestured her over, and indicated for her to crouch slightly before pointing towards one of the bodies.

Marasi followed the line of her arm to the face of one of the bodies, only made visible from that particular angle. It was the koloss-blooded one, and after a second, Marasi managed to figure out why he looked familiar.

"Rust and _ruin_ ," she swore. "That's Icepick Irn, isn't it."

Josette confirmed her question with a grim nod. "Not only that - I'm pretty sure that one still holding the gun on the right is Tesk Vederen." 

Ice ran down Marasi's spine. Icepick Irn was one of the main enforcers for the Fishhooks, a primarily mercantile gang with operations throughout the fifth and sixth octants's shipping areas. They primarily dealt in smuggling and gunrunning, but weren't afraid to dip their toes into mundane robbery as well, and Irn had been in charge of their muscle for the longest time. He'd been jailed before, caught for basic charges, but nothing ever stuck.

Tesk Vederen, on the other hand, was the favoured son of the Vederen crime family, who had been entrenched in the outer Seventh for longer than Marasi had been alive. They were mostly white-collar criminals - running protection rackets, money laundering, bribery and general corruption - but in recent years, there had been an uptick in more aggressive behaviour, larceny and robbery and even a few assaults. Most attributed this to Tesk's increasing prominence within the family, and quite a few people higher up in the chain of command had been worried about what it represented for Tesk eventually took over from his aging father Gedo. 

_Well_ , Marasi thought with morbid amusement, _we certainly don't have to worry about_ that _any more_.

That was why she was here, why Reddi was here. It wasn't specifically the two other precincts that had been brought in; this was going to involve _all_ of them. 

It also explained why there were no other detectives inspecting the scene. 

Murder in a locked vault didn't seem all that important, after all, compared to the potential of a gang war.

"Well, _rust_ ," Marasi said again. 

* * *

Marasi flagged a junior constable down as she ascended back up to the main lobby. Now that she was watching for it, the hurried tension in the movements of the other officers around her was obvious, like an agitated anthill. 

“Are the constable-generals still in their meeting?” she asked the young constable. She didn’t recognise him, but that was no real indication of where he was assigned - there were far too many constables in a precinct for her to know all of them by sight, and the precincts didn’t differentiate their uniforms.

“Yes, ma’am,” the constable said curiously. “Up in the manager’s office. Do you need me to show you the way?”

Marasi shook her head. She wasn’t going to interrupt that meeting; she had far too much self-preservation for that. “As you were.” She'd find something productive to do until he was done. Looking around in that vein, her attention was drawn to a woman sitting on a chair, draped in a blanket, with a constable standing over one shoulder.

That seemed like it would do.

"Sergeant," she said with a nod as she drew closer. She recognised him from her precinct; a sergeant named… Dorr? Darr.

“Captain Colms,” Darr said, gesturing at the woman. “This is Evari, ma’am, the bank’s Seeker.” She was short and thin, maybe around Steris’s age, with a sallow complexion and sunken eyes. “We found her locked in a storage closet. Seems like she’d been ethered.”

There was a slightly dizzy, glassy look to her eyes that seemed to support that statement. _Ether…_ Marasi thought of the bodies in the vault, the way they’d been grouped, and then stored that thought away for later.

“Ms. Evari,” she said instead. “I’m Captain Marasi Colms, of the Fourth Precinct. Do you remember anything about how you ended up in that closet?”

"I'm afraid I can't help you, ma'am," the Seeker said apologetically. "I was at my post, then there was something over my mouth, and then I woke up i-in-" her breath caught in her throat as she gagged.

"Easy," Marasi said. She took her canteen from her bag and passed it to her. "Drink, small sips. We'll talk again when you've recovered a little more."

The look the woman gave her at that was so ridiculously thankful that Marasi almost felt guilty, because she hadn't done anything to deserve gratitude of that level.

The look she got from Darr was less thankful, but it quickly turned in a mask of calm professionalism as he glanced over her shoulder.

She turned, following his gaze, and found Constable-General Reddi approaching, a grim look on his face. Marasi quickly excused herself, reassuring Evari once more, and met him halfway.

"It's a mess, Colms," he growled without greeting, running a hand through hair that wasn't technically capable of supporting said action. "It's a rust-damned mess, and it's only going to get worse from here. This has all the hallmarks of a gang war ready to erupt."

As pessimistic as his assessment of the situation was, Marasi couldn't really disagree with it. He didn't have to be so dramatic about it, though. "I'm aware, sir."

"No," Reddi snapped, "you're not. You weren't even on the force when the vacuum from the Vanishers nearly burnt half an octant down. You have _no_ idea how bad this could get." It was like a return to her early days on the force, Reddi snapping at her over the favour his predecessor had given her. Except it was worse now, because he was her direct superior.

That was one of the aspects of his personality that she was least fond of. While he was easy enough to get along with under normal circumstances, he tended to become snappish and acerbic under stress; a fairweather friend, except she certainly wouldn’t call him a friend.

"How do you want to handle this, sir?" she asked instead.

Reddi pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and ring finger, and sighed. "I'll need to meet with the other Constable-Generals as soon as possible, but if this doesn't take up all of our available manpower, I'll be very surprised. Our focus is going to have to be preparing for an outright gang war - as ridiculous as it sounds to say, recovering the money is a second priority at best.”

“And the actual _murder_ , sir?” Marasi asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“Well, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” he said snappishly. “Do what he'd do. Figure this out, and _soon._ Survivor willing, there'll be something in there that we can use to defuse some tensions.”

“On- my own, sir?”

Reddi gestured around. “Does it look like we have manpower to spare, Colms? This is what you agreed to. It’s this, or I send you out to bring Dawnshot back-”

“No,” Marasi said immediately, more forcefully than she intended. “No, that’s not necessary. Like you said, sir, what’s one person going to do, anyway?” She realised a little too late that she’d accidentally called herself extraneous, but she didn’t want- 

It wasn’t _necessary_ for Wax and Steris to come back. They’d earned their honeymoon, and-

-and that was the only reason. 

“Hrm,” Reddi said, clearly not convinced. 

A slight commotion cut off the conversation before it could continue, and they both turned to see two people being stopped by the cordon of constables across the main lobby of the bank.

The first of them was a young-ish Terrisman, short and wiry, with a thin, wispy mustache and pockmarked acne scars across his face. He wasn’t _not_ handsome, at least not as far as Marasi was able to judge those things, but not particularly exceptional-looking either. His kinky brown hair was cropped close to the skull, and he wore a slightly shabby tweed suit, the jacket and shirt slightly ill-fitting and baggy. One hand held a notepad, the other a pen - the very image of an archetypical reporter.

His presumable photographer followed just behind him, a short woman with curly red hair and glasses carrying a bulky camera, a bulky equipment bag slung across one shoulder. 

She looked a lot like the woman Marasi had met at the bar a few nights ago, which was mostly due to the fact that she _was_ the woman Marasi had met at the bar a few nights. 

Their eyes met, and for a fraction of a second, they both froze, before silent understanding flashed between them.

_Not a word._

Marasi said nothing as the reporter approached the cordon of constables keeping the public away from the crime scene.

"Edwydlan," he said, voice confident and smooth despite the odd, slightly squeaky quality it held. "I'm with the _Seeker."_ He pulled his press pass from his hat as proof, letting one of the constables inspect the slip of paper. The constable gave Marasi a quick nod, and they allowed the two press members to pass. 

“Oh,” Reddi muttered under his breath. “This ought to be good.”

Sure enough, the reporter made a beeline for them.

"The constable-general himself?" he noted as he approached, intrigued. " _And_ the inimitable Captain Marasi Colms! This smells like an interesting story indeed."

"People are _dead_ , you parasite," Reddi snapped at him. 

Marasi winced.

"Oh?" the reporter asked, unperturbed. "Is that an official statement, Constable-General? Would you care to comment on the nature of the deaths?"

Reddi glared at him, clearly aware he'd made a misstep. "Captain Colms, take care of this," he said, stalking away.

 _Still not your rusting aide._ "Yes, sir."

Edwydlan was eyeing her, a canny, knowing look on his face. "Captain Colms," he said, sticking out his hand. "Truly a pleasure. I'm a great admirer of your work with Lord Ladrian."

"I see," Marasi replied neutrally, giving a firm but perfunctory handshake. "You managed to get here very quickly. Just happened to be in the area?"

"Everyone's a Spinner once in a while," he replied guilelessly. "Art, you want to set up here?"

"Further in would be better," the photographer replied, eyeing the space behind the cordon. If Marasi had any doubt that she was the woman from the bar, they were firmly erased at the sound of her voice. "If we can swing it."

"I suppose that's up to the Captain." Edwydlan gestured between the two of them. "My photographer Lanarte," he added. 

"Just Art," the woman in question grunted. "Er, if you don't mind," she added hastily.

"So, now that we're all introduced properly, are we allowed past?"

"I'm sure you know full well that I can't allow you to photograph or publicise the scene of the crime itself."

"Of course," the reporter agreed. "Just a better angle of this scene out here will do nicely. Art?"

The photographer pointed to a small balcony on the second level that overlooked the bank's lobby. "There'd be best, if we can swing it."

"Hrm." Marasi couldn't see any strong reason to refuse the request, but something was niggling at the back of her mind. "I wasn't aware the _Seeker_ had a crime beat," she noted. 

The reporter laughed self-effacingly, and Marasi found herself grudgingly warming to the man. "Maybe we're here for the financial section."

"Ah yes," Marasi said dryly, gesturing to the camera equipment that Art was carrying. "The financials being known for their large amount of photographs."

"Maybe we're trying something new," he responded without missing a beat.

"I'm sure you are.” 

He grinned, leaning in closer. “Between you and me, Captain, this _may_ be a… self-directed venture. But that’s certainly not _illegal,_ is it?”

“Young and hungry?” Marasi diagnosed.

“Just so,” he agreed. “And perhaps it’s arrogant of me to say, but a friend in the press is never a bad thing for a detective like yourself, ey?”

Marasi mulled the thought over, undecided. Strictly speaking, there was no actual violation of any rules on her part, not even in the spirit rather than the letter. The slight dubiousness was more an internal matter for the paper than anything legal, certainly nothing anything she'd face any punishment for. 

On top of that, he wasn’t wrong. Reporters heard things, knew people. It was a good part of what Wayne or M-

Of what Wayne did in their usual dynamic- which she was currently bereft of.

Marasi took a step back, and gestured them past. “I suppose you’ll be wanting a quote as well?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

The questions and responses they exchanged as the three of them ascended the stairs were mostly perfunctory; for Marasi, at least. She’d done enough interviews with the press to know her forms; the constabulary would not confirm or deny any rumours at this time, she had the utmost faith in the fine officers of constabulary, and so on. And of course, ‘no comment’, the old workhorse.

While they talked, Art had set up her cumbersome equipment on the landing at the top of the stairs, and effected the process of capturing photographs. Marasi wasn’t usually a distractible person, by her own estimation, but the way that the other woman’s solid, callused fingers deftly manipulated various levers and catches was…

Distracting.

Art must have noticed her gaze, because after taking a few photos, she moved over slightly and slipped deftly into a gap in the conversation.

"Ed," she said quietly. "I need a favour?"

He and Marasi both glanced at her, surprised. "Oh?" he asked.

"Can you give us an excuse for me and the captain to talk in private?"

Marasi blanched, but Edwydlan seemed nonplussed. "Sure," he said easily. "Captain Colms," he continued at a louder volume, enough to be overheard but without seeming suspicious. "Would you mind if I let my assistant take over this last part of the interview? She's looking to steal my job, and this'll be good practice for her."

"Hey," Art protested. "I'm not angling for your job _specifically_."

The reporter chuckled. "Sure, sure. Good luck, kid." He chucked her on the shoulder as he walked away, quickly flagging down a passing constable for a quote.

"Laying it on a bit thick there, Ed," Art muttered, sounding more amused than annoyed. "He's a year younger than me, you know." She gestured, and Marasi followed her over to one of the offices for a bit of privacy.

"And still your boss, huh," Marasi observed.

"Hey, naw," Art said quickly. "Sure, in _general_ , but not Ed. Ed's good people, so don't worry none about him asking awkward questions or nothin'."

Marasi relaxed slightly as she shut the door behind her, relieved. "I'm glad to hear that."

"I'll bet." She pulled out a notebook from her satchel, a pencil from behind her ear. "Just gonna act like I'm writing, so we don't look suspicious."

"Good idea. And, I mean, if you _are_ actually looking to move into reporting-"

Art snorted, amused. "Oh, hells no. Ed's just quick on his feet like that."

"Good," Marasi replied. "I hate giving interviews."

“Seems pretty awful,” Art agreed. “So, uh. _First_ , I swear on the Survivor's lacerated anus that this is _not_ what I meant when I said I'd be around."

"I figured as much," Marasi replied, choosing to ignore the… _unique_ choice of language.

"Oh, good," Art sighed, sounding relieved. "Worried y'might think I was stalkin' you or somethin'."

"Trust me," Marasi said, "if you were stalking me, I'd know about it."

Art gave her an odd look. "...alrighty then. So, _the_ Marasi Colms, huh? If I'd known, I'd have brought my A-game to the flirtin'."

"Why is everyone always saying that?" Marasi asked exasperatedly. "Not the flirting thing, the other thing. I'm not _the_ anything. Marasi isn't an uncommon name, you know? I knew three other Marasis in college."

Art snickered. "Hey, s'not like you're a household name or anythin'. A lady runnin' with Dawnshot tends to stick in the mind, s'all."

"I suppose," Marasi allowed. "I just don't see why it has to be such a big deal. I'm just doing a job, like anyone else."

"Huh." Art gave her an appraising look. "Well, you've got less of a stick up your ass than most every other noble I've met, that's for sure."

"Thank you for the glowing praise," Marasi said dryly. "Listen- I don't want to be rude, but I do have a job to do, and you do as well- wait, is it really okay to leave your equipment just sitting out like that?"

"This place is swarming with conners, and Ed's keeping an eye on it, it's fine."

"Right, okay. Uh, what was I…"

"You were about to make sure I wasn't going to tell anyone about you, right?"

"...well, are you?"

"Explain to me how I do that without implicatin' myself," Art pointed out.

"..fair. Sorry, you know I had to ask."

Art waved it off easily. "I'd ask the same, but I think we got a nice little… dutente?”

“ _Detente?_ ”

She snapped her fingers. “So close. Yeah, I’m fine if you’re fine.” She looked Marasi up and down. “And you certainly seem _fine_.”

Marasi rolled her eyes at the line, more amused than she’d care to admit. “Is all this flirting actually _for_ something, or do you just like the sound of your own voice?”

“Don’t see why it has to be an ‘or’,” Art replied immediately. “Why? You want it to mean something?”

Even Marasi could read between the lines there. Still, it never hurt to ask. “Are you… asking me on a date? At a crime scene?”

"Hey, life goes on, right? People in your line of work or mine, if we only had a life while there was nothing urgent, we'd never have a life at all."

"...that sounds about accurate to my experience, yes," Marasi had to admit. “Still, I don’t know if it’s really the time.”

“Doesn’t have to be anytime soon!” Art protested. “Just, you know. In general. 

And, hey, if you need an excuse for yourself, I know people who know people who know . We can make a workin’ date out of it.”

Marasi couldn’t help but laugh. “So you’ll bribe your way into a date?” she said, only half-teasing.

“Wh- no, no, not like that! That’s- an open offer, out of my own blatant attempts to endear myself to you, whether you say yes or not. Just figured that if you _did,_ we could burn two metals at once?” The grin she offered was a little hesitant, which was definitely helping her case.

Marasi had to ask. “Blatant attempts to endear yourself to me?” 

“Is it working?”

“Who’s to say,” she replied instead of the actual answer, which was ‘yes’. She was halfway through opening her mouth to turn her down anyway, but for whatever reason, she stopped herself, and actually thought about it. Nothing had changed since they'd first met - well, obviously, this encounter had been less impersonal, but nothing about _Marasi_ had changed. She was still- maybe not one hundred percent ready for anything like that-

-but how would she know for sure without trying? And she _did_ like Art well enough; she had a rough charm and certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes. 

What ultimately cinched it for her, though, was the thought that there was no way she was letting _her_ have so much of an effect on Marasi’s life that she couldn’t move on.

“I’ll think about it,” she equivocated. She was leaning pretty strongly towards saying yes, but playing coy was a thing, right? Leave them wanting more?  
“Hey, I’ll take it!” Art grinned. “Here.” A small card appeared in her hand, which she passed over. It had her name, and the Seeker’s address. “When you find a second between… whatever it is you’re off to do now?”

 _Whatever indeed._ Lavari-Edmons, the vaultmakers. The Fishhook Gang and the Vederen Family. The black market. Evari the Seeker. 

She'd have to make up a whole new board once she got home.

Lavari seemed like the best avenue of investigation to begin with. Every solution to every problem was simple; the tricky part was the line between them. 

But, first…

“Right now?” Marasi said. “I have to go see a man about a hat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (feb 1): been having a real shit time of things lately, and its affecting my creativity. in a pre-emptive move to avoid burnout, im putting a pause on updates for the month of February, to return in March. might be i work on something else, might be i dont. not ideal, i know, but its better than trying to power through and just burning out on the fic entirely which is Not what i want bc i have Plans. Gay Plans. thank you for your patience.
> 
> \------
> 
> [that excellent stormlight fic i linked a few chapters ago](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510287) is now on ao3 so there's literally no excuse not to read it
> 
> in addition, there's now [a fucking dope-ass series doing paalm justice](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088489) by the same author
> 
> if you like my mistborn stuff i guarantee you'll like every's as well, they're a galaxy-brained genius
> 
> notes:  
> \- i came very close to naming this chapter after a skulduggery pleasant quote, only to realise at the last minute that i had already used that exact quote for a chapter title years ago. somehow, it felt too repetitive to use it again, despite the fact that i imagine the venn diagram of people who read that work and people who read this one is two separate circles  
> \- if you're having trouble with the geography of stuff, [I've annotated the official map of Elendel](https://spectrochroma.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/foxtail-map-copy.png), highlighting canon locations and marking ones I've made up in red  
> \- in case you missed it ive dropped updates back to once a fortnight just cause that was what was happening anyway. i dont like doing it but i have Not had spoons and also its free fanfiction on the internet.  
> \- this one really gave me some grief, and to be honest im still not happy with it, but sometimes you just have to power through  
> \- of course, sometimes you have to go back and rework. and its pretty hard to tell which time is which.  
> \- fun stuff

**Author's Note:**

> updates every other Tuesday


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